A Date With Sanji
by three-days-late
Summary: AU in which Sanji attempts to go on a date with every girl in the One Piece universe. Good Luck Sanji!
1. Jewelry Bonney

**I really have no explanation for this**. **I was just bored, and I'm certainly going to try to hook up Sanji with all of the girls in One Piece, but we'll see how far I get. Feel free to make suggestions of who you want next.**

**On another note, I really suck at writing Sanji in flirt mode. Why I decided to take on such a project with that in mind is beyond me. Oh well, practice makes perfect.**

**By the way, I don't own One Piece. Just in case you were wondering to yourself, "I wonder if this was written by Oda..."  
**

* * *

"You going out again?"

Sanji glanced away from the mirror where he had been fixing his hair for the past 2 hours to look at his roommate. The green-haired man was casually leaning against the doorway drinking a beer while waiting for an answer.

"Of course." In an attempt to find a steady girlfriend, Sanji had gone out with a different girl almost every night for the past month or so. Clearly it wasn't going so well, but Sanji was very hopeful about tonight…just like every other night.

"Where did you find this one? Not in a back alley again I hope." Zoro finished off his beer and crushed the can in his hand.

"No, I met her outside a Café this afternoon. Her name's Jewelry Bonney, 'cause I know that's going to be you're next question." They've been through this routine almost every time.

"Hm? Jewels? I know her." Also part of the routine. It seemed as if Zoro knew _every_ girl in town. Why he refused to actually introduce any of them to Sanji himself still remained a mystery to the chef. "We're in that Supernova club thing together. She and Luffy seem to get along swimmingly. Considering…"

There it was. Zoro Roronoa's reason why this girl, like all of the others, will eventually drive Sanji insane, thus condemning him to bachelor life forever. Maybe Sanji should focus his efforts on a new roommate first. Of course, maybe he just continues to dig his own grave, because he still consistently asked, "Considering what?"

"Well, I'm sure it's no big deal for you, being a chef and all, but Jewels and Luffy have similar appetites. Honestly, I'm always surprised when the place still has any food left after she and Luffy have had their fill." Damn him. If there's one thing that Zoro can do to turn him away from a girl, it's compare her to Luffy. "You'd probably better off just cooking something for her here rather than taking her out."

"You just don't want to make your own dinner. Besides, it's rude to have the first date at home. Especially if you're stupid roommate is going to be home all night."

"Che. It's your money I guess. Assuming you're paying for dinner…"

"Of course I am."

"Meh. Like I said, it's your money." He shrugged and made his way to the TV area. Sanji finished his primping and grabbed his jacket before leaving the room. "I'm off."

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do." Somehow Sanji's shoe that was by the front door a few seconds before managed to hit Zoro's head.

* * *

Sanji looked at his watch again. Jewelry was almost a half hour late. They had agreed to meet in front of the restaurant at 8, but his watch informed him that it was about 8:27. Where was she?

About 5 minutes later Jewelry came running up the sidewalk. She was wearing a red and black striped mini-skirt with matching leggings, black boots, and a white blouse. Sanji thought she looked absolutely stunning (just like every girl he saw) and was glad that he decided to wear the red pinstripe shirt with the black vest instead of the green one.

"Sorry I'm late. I got held up by this cop."

"Did you drive here?" Sanji asked, looking around for a car or a vehicle of some kind.

"No, there was this jerk that got in my way. I may have punched him in the face to get my point across and a cop saw us. Apparently that counted as assault or something. I got off though 'cause the cop thought I was younger than I actually am."

"The real crime would have been locking up someone as cute as you for something like that in the first place. You look lovely tonight, by the way."

"You're not so bad on the eyes yourself. This where we're eating?"

"Yes. This restaurant is owned by an acquaintance of mine, so I was able to get a reservation." They entered the restaurant and were promptly seated and served their drinks

"You're a cook right? Ya think the food here is going to be any good? Aren't cooks pretty picky about things like that?"

"My dear, I wouldn't consider taking someone as divine as you somewhere I wouldn't consider eating at." The waiter showed up and they ordered their meal. Sanji was a bit unnerved about the amount of food Jewelry ordered, but Zoro had said she had an appetite and besides, he's cooked for Luffy and Ace on several occasions. The amount of food some people were able to eat was nothing new to him.

Things were going pretty smoothly if he did say so himself. They probably would have continued smoothly if the food had somehow never arrived. Then again, maybe it would have made things worse; Sanji was never one to think about what could have been anyway.

Jewelry managed to eat her larger-than-normal meal in under 5 minutes. This in itself was no big shock to Sanji. It was more of the way she devoured it. After all, even Luffy knew not to put his feet on the table. After she finished her first course however, she continued banging on the table asking for more and more food until Sanji's acquaintance had to come over and remove them from the restaurant. Sanji was going to have to pay him back somehow, and Sanji _hated_ having to pay people back if it couldn't involve food.

Being a gentleman, Sanji waked Jewelry home. The entire trip consisted of her complaining about how restaurants these days never had enough food or were never willing to share. They were paying customers after all; there was no reason for her to be kicked out…again. Sanji simply nodded and agreed with whatever came out of her mouth.

When they got to her building's door Jewelry said, "Well, that wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Maybe next time you can cook for me instead."

Sanji cringed, inwardly of course. "Maybe. I never really have any food on hand though."

"Yeah, Zoro always says something like that."

Sanji groaned, inwardly. "Zoro says we never have enough food?"

"Yeah, we're in the Supernova club thing together and he's mentioned how you have trouble feeding both him and Luffy on your salary."

Sanji didn't know what was worse, the fact that he was once again ending a date with the topic of Zoro or the fact that Zoro complained about not having enough food in the apartment when he ate more of it than Luffy.

"Well, it was nice meeting you. You're a lot nicer than Zoro says." Sanji had the sudden urge to kick something, preferable a green-haired something with a sword fetish. "Thanks for dinner." And with that, she went inside and left Sanji on the front stoop.

Sanji sighed. "Ce la vie." He walked down the lonely streets back to his apartment.

* * *

Upon returning, Sanji found Zoro, Luffy, and Brooke sitting around the coffee table in the TV area playing cards. They looked up as Sanji came through the door. "That bad huh?" Zoro asked, picking up on his defeated stance and food-stained…everything.

"It was fine until the food showed up." Sanji countered, sitting down with the others at the unoccupied side of the square table.

"Yeah, it's usually like that with Bonney," Luffy felt the need to add, before slamming his cards down on the table and shouting "King me!"

"Yohoho, Luffy, we're playing go fish. By the way, do you have any threes?" Brooke asked.

"As a matter of fact I have three. How did you know?"

Zoro rolled his eyes. "You want in?" he asked Sanji.

"Sure, why not?" He picked up seven cards from the deck in the middle of the table and proceeded to just play cards with his friends.


	2. Kalifa

**Thank you all so much for the kind words, both the ones that you wrote and the ones you were all thinking when you read it but decided not to comment. As for all of the unkind words that you were thinking, you can keep those. **

**Next up is Kalifa as requested by Dandy Wondrous. Well, not really requested as much as 'looking forward to it.' Whatever, same thing in my book. Nojiko's next btw. I'm going in order. :)**

**In my opinion, if Sanji wasn't a pirate and Kalifa wasn't a secret government assassin, then they would have gotten along quite well. But alas, fate (or Oda) would not have it so.**

**And I don't own One Piece. And I never will.  
**

* * *

"You're taking her _where_?" Zoro was sitting on Sanji's bed playing with a slinky while Sanji was searching for a shirt to wear in his closet. At this moment, however, the slinky had ceased all movement as Zoro was looking at his roommate with pure shock written all over his face.

"Che La Orbit." Sanji answered nonchalantly while looking an orange pinstripe shirt before placing it back in the closet.

"That high-class-snotty-French place where you need to call ahead at least 6 months to even be considered for a reservation?" Sanji nodded. "How in the hell did you get a reservation, unless you've been planning this for a year?"

"I know a guy." Sanji simply said, checking out a green shirt before putting that back too.

"You always seem to know a guy don't you?" Zoro commented before returning his attention to the slinky at hand. "How did you even manage to get someone like Kalifa to go out with you anyway?"

"Franky introduced us. See, normal friends actually _introduce_ you to the hot girls they know."

"How does Franky even know her anyway? And that still doesn't explain why she would consider going out with you." Zoro said while contemplating the ever growing slinky-knot that had somehow appeared.

"She's Iceburg's secretary. Apparently he and Franky are friends or something. We kinda hit it off. Is it that hard to imagine someone actually not hating me?" Sanji tossed one of Zoro's shirts that had somehow ended up in his closet at its owner's head.

"Yeah, it kinda is." Zoro replied bluntly, putting the shirt in his lap before continuing to "fix" the tangled slinky.

"Just because you're a manner deprived buffoon with no class doesn't mean the rest of the human population feels the same way." Sanji finally settled on the blue pinstripe shirt with a black tie and matching jacket; you just can't bet the classics after all.

"Humph." Zoro expressively replied while he dealt with a slinky that was at this point more gigantic slinky mess than actual slinky. Sanji walked over, took the slinky from his hands, and in a few swift movements had it restored to its previous condition before tossing it back to Zoro. "Well, I'm off."

"Hmr." Zoro remarked, still staring at the slinky. He will never know how he does that; must be some secret slinky-fixing-maneuver that only annoying, blonde, swirly-browed chefs can pull off or something.

* * *

Kalifa was waiting for him outside the restaurant when Sanji got there. She was looking dazzling in a small, black, form-fitting dress with matching fishnet stockings, classy heels, and a shawl. Her blonde hair was down, but tucked eloquently behind one ear while perfectly framing her simply yet lovely, in Sanji's opinion, glasses.

"Sorry my dear, where you waiting long?" he asked.

"No, I only got here a few minutes ago. Of course that didn't stop the valet from sexually harassing me."

"Should I kick his ass?"

"No I've already dealt with him." Sanji noticed a foot twitching from behind the podium by the door, but decided not to question further. "Shall we enter than?" he asked, offering his arm.

"Yes, of course." She gracefully accepted and let him lead her inside.

They were promptly seating and their drinks arrived speedily enough. Kalifa was, like Zoro although he would never admit it, impressed that Sanji was able to get a reservation here. Sanji accepted her praises modestly while dishing out several of his own. Things were going great and Sanji was wondering how things could possible go wrong this time when it all went to hell.

Sanji had thought that he recognized one of his least favorite customers when he first entered the restaurant (for some odd reason he _always _insisted that Sanji make his meal whenever he stopped by the restaurant and he _always _took every opportunity to complain about it no matter how delicious his companions said it was and Sanji _always _ended up kicking his ass) but he decided to let it slide. How could he possible interfere anyway? It's not like Sanji was cooking for him tonight, so he had nothing to complain about. Yet halfway through there meal, Jyabura still managed to find a way to saunter over and piss Sanji off, using the excuse that he knew Kalifa.

And apparently they were friends or something, but Sanji was sure that the only reason he was talking to her was just to get on his nerves. This was confirmed when he said, "So what are you doing in a place like this with a guy like that anyway?"

In retrospect, Sanji probably could have let the comment slide. Of course, if things could have been done in retrospect than Sanji would never _ever_ have gone through that emo stage in high school; worst decision of his life, although responding to that comment is a very close second. "Well, I guess she just wanted some actual company tonight instead of the ravings of some lunatic wolf-man." Jyabura reminded him of a wolf for some reason and Sanji would always take the opportunity to point it out.

"What was that?!" Jyabura was reeling for a fight, but his square-nosed cohort held him back. "Jyabura, do not fight him now. We still have customers to talk to and it would be best if you were somewhat coherent for that. Hello Kalifa, it's great to see you."

"It's nice to see you to Kaku."

"He started it though!"

"It does not really matter who started it; we are all adults here."

Sanji probably should have stopped there, he had won after all. "Yeah wolf-boy, why don't you listen to Mommy and go off and play somewhere else?"

The rest was a bit of a blur. Jyabura launched himself out of Kaku's grip at Sanji who immediately countered it with a sharp kick to the head. The two of them continued to fight throughout the restaurant until somehow Sanji's foot caught on fire. Not really thinking about it he launched another kick at Jyabura who thought it would be a good idea to counter it with a bottle of wine. Next thing Sanji knew, Jyabura was on fire, he was bleeding, Kalifa was in Kaku's arms, and everyone was outside of the restaurant. He didn't even get a chance to apologize for ruining dinner to Kalifa before he was pulled into an ambulance, but she didn't really seem to mind as she had already left with Kaku.

* * *

"So let me get this straight: You're foot caught on fire?"

"Yes."

"But you didn't suffer any burns whatsoever? "

"Yup."

Zoro started laughing. Sanji had been mortified when Chopper, who was on call that night and had ended up treating Sanji, had taken the liberty of calling Zoro down to the hospital to take him home. After going through the story of just how he had ended up at the hospital, he now had to listen to his roommate laughing at him the whole ride home.

"How is that even possible?" Zoro managed to get out between chuckles.

"I don't know. I guess my heart was just burning hotter or something."

"That doesn't make any sense." He chuckled to himself again. "And did she really just run off with his friend right afterwards?"

"Seems like it."

Zoro laughed some more. "Is your friend from the restaurant going to press charges, 'cause form the sounds of things, you almost burnt the place down."

"No he's pretty chill about things like that."

"You're friends are weird."

"You know, technically _you're_ my friend."

"Yeah, and you know how weird I am." Sanji smiled at that. "Come on, I know you're down now, but eventually you're just going to look back on all of this and laugh."

"You're doing enough of that for the both of us."

"True. But come on, I got a text from Ace earlier. He, Franky, and Usopp are out clubbing and asked if someone with actually taste wanted to join them."

"Then why did he text you?"

"Seriously though, it will be easier to laugh this off when you're plastered."

"I guess, I mean my night can't get any worse…right?"


	3. Nojiko

**So I got struck simultaneously by a bout of inspiration and a bout of insomnia and the result is as follows. Nojiko, which Dandy Wondrous was also looking forward to. Next up is Perona. **

**Review Responses!:**

**ShaolinQueen: **Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it. I like Zoro and Sanji's dialogue. It's just so fun to write and it pratically writes itself!

**Dandy Wondrous: **I'm glad I could help cheer you up! For some reason I just had this picture of Zoro sitting on a bed playing with a slinky and that's what popped out. And yeah, I love how Oda answered that question, all the SBS questions really...

**Anzuillison183: **Yeah, that's my bad; I suck at summaries. I'm glad you gave it a shot though, and that the actual writing exceeds your expectations from the summary.

**Splatter Fall: **I'm glad you enjoyed it. I like Bonney too; she's like my third favorite supernova not counting Luffy and Zoro. (That offically puts her behind Law and Drake, incase anyone was wondering.) Perona's coming up next, and I have a few ideas that will hopefully met expectations.

**Oh, and I'm still not awesome enough to own One Piece yet.**

* * *

Zoro poked his head into the apartment. Sanji had been in the middle of a cooking frenzy and rather than disturb him and risk getting numerous amounts of cooking utensils shoved up places he'd rather not have them he opted to hit the gym instead. When he discovered that Sanji's back was turned while he was putting the finishing touches on something that just came out of the oven, Zoro took the opportunity to slip into the bathroom and take a shower.

When he came out 10 minutes later wearing nothing but sweatpants his eccentric roommate was putting everything into a large picnic basket on the counter. "Going somewhere cook?" he questioned, running a hand through his still-wet hair.

Sanji glanced up, removing his pink apron to reveal an orange-striped collared shirt accompanying his usually black slacks and shoes combo. "Yes, as a matter of fact. The lovely Nojiko and I are going on a picnic this afternoon."

"Nojiko? Nami's sister?" Zoro asked looking thoughtful. "Damn, I haven't seen her since that one time in Vegas…"

"My God, is there any girl you haven't slept with?!"

"I never said we did anything…"

"Well did you?" Zoro glanced awkwardly at the ground. "Yeah that's what I thought." Zoro would have made the best comeback in the history of comebacks at this point, but Sanji was holding a knife and his swords were in the other room, so he settled for saying, "Does Nami know about this? She's seems too close to her sister to actually let her go out with someone like you." He realized this was the wrong thing to say when the knife found itself in the wall mere inches from his head.

"She's the one who arranged it." Sanji said, moving to the other side of the counter to retrieve his knife. "She said that Nojiko was feeling a bit down so she suggested that I take her somewhere."

"And the best place you could think of was a dirty field full of ants?"

"It's springtime! It's only natural to have a picnic in the springtime!" Sanji stated while waving his knife around. Zoro ducked just in time to spare himself from being decapitated. Sanji kept those knives a bit too sharp for Zoro's comfort.

"A sakura viewing would be better, true," Sanji conceded, "but we are not in Japan, so it wouldn't quite mean the same, you know?"

"No I don't, actually. I don't really pay attention to girly things like that, considering I'm a guy and all that." He ducked again to avoid having his head separated from his shoulders by a kick. It amazed Zoro how many times he could come close to losing his head in one conversation with his roommate.

"Che, whatever you unromantic bastard. A little clichéd romance is a good thing every now and then." Sanji remarked before returning behind the counter to prepare the picnic basket.

"Maybe so, but you seem to freak'n emit clichéd romance like it's a spore."

"Hm, whatever." Sanji replied without looking up from his task. "By the way, I'm borrowing your car, so you better not have left any trash or sword-crap or whatever else you leave in there in it."

"Considering the fact it's _mine_ I think you should either not complain or buy your own damn car." Suddenly there was a knock on the door. "She's coming _here_!?"

"Yeah, did I forget to mention that? Sorry." Sanji replied without a shred of remorse on his face. "She's just meeting me here; we'll be gone right away. Luffy, Usopp, and Chopper are coming over today right? I left you guys about fifteen sandwiches in the fridge." He said while picking up the basket and heading towards the door.

"Will that be enough?" Zoro wondered aloud while putting on the shirt that was conveniently placed on the chair in the TV area.

"Usopp and Chopper will only have one each. That leaves two for you and ten for Luffy. It should at least hold him long enough for you guys to order pizza or something." He remarked before answering the door with, "Ah, Nojiko! You're looking as lovely as ever!" She was wearing jeans and a sea foam green vest with matching sandals that complemented her hair and tattoos. "Shall we go?"

"Yeah let's go." She said before shouting, "It's good to see you again Zoro!"

"Hm. You too." Said man lazily replied.

"We should get going now or else we won't get a good seat…" Sanji all but mumbled before closing the door behind him.

"We're going on a picnic, how can we get a bad seat?" Nojiko commented. Zoro just laughed.

* * *

Sure enough, when they got there all the good seats were still available. As a matter of fact, all of the seats were still available, as they were the only ones out picnicking on this particular stretch of grass today. Sanji didn't know why; the field was almost as gorgeous as his companion for this equally gorgeous afternoon. The grass under his feet (they had both removed their shoes) was soft and squishy, the trees were swaying hypnotically in the gentle breeze. The small river that ran through the field was not only aesthetically pleasing, but also provided wonderful background noise. All in all, Sanji thought this was a perfect day for a perfect picnic.

He and Nojiko set up their blanket under a sturdy looking tree on the far side of the meadow. They ate the fantastic meal Sanji had prepared (which earned him numerous brownie points and compliments from Nojiko, all of which he returned with just as much fervor) and proceeded to wander toward the center of the meadow and do some cloud gazing. It was going pretty well if Sanji did say so himself.

"That cloud looks kinda like a spider." Nojiko innocently remarked. Sanji shuddered noticeably at the thought. "I never took you for an archnephobic Sanji."She teased.

"It's not that I'm particularly afraid of them per say…" the cook remarked, "It's just that they kinda freak me out a bit."

"Really?" Nojiko laughed, "You don't seem to freaked out by the one on your neck."

Sanji froze. He didn't dare move his hand to his neck to check to see if she was just joking or if there actually _was_ a spider on his neck. He wasn't going to lie: bugs freaked him out. Spiders did to. They were just so damn creepy with all those legs and all that _movement_. Plus they were the bane of chefs everywhere. It doesn't matter how good the meal you poured your heart and soul into is; if there was a bug in it, the customer automatically hated it.

Nojiko laughed a light, airy laugh at his shock before reaching over and brushing it off herself. That's when he realized something had crawled up his shirt. Several somethings now that he thought about it. Several creepy crawly somethings that seemed to be doing the salsa on his back. Needless to say, he shot up into a sitting position immediately. "Something wrong?" Nojiko asked.

"Yeah, I think there's something in my shirt…" Sanji started, before he realized that he accidently lay down near an ant mound. Now all of the creepiness in his shirt made sense.

He most certainly did _not_ scream like a girl. If Sanji has to defend that singular fact until the day he dies he most certainly will. His yell of surprise was just a tad bit higher in pitch than he would have liked. And he most certainly did _not_ completely lose it. He was just a little less calm and level headed than he would have liked.

For her part, Nojiko reacted quite well. She was able to assess what had happened quickly enough and was able to strip Sanji of his shirt and drag him off to the nearby river and push him in before he hurt himself. Only when all of the ants were gone and Sanji had completely calmed down did she proceed to start laughing.

Sanji, once he collected his sense, flushed a very interesting shade of pink. "Sorry, Nojiko. I didn't mean to ruin the mood…"

"It's fine, it's fine." She insisted through her laughing fit. Sanji got out of the river and wandered back over to their picnicking area with Nojiko following. Together they cleaned up their mess and found Sanji's shirt, with only a few more outbursts from Nojiko, and left the meadow behind.

* * *

Sanji dropped Nojiko off at the small house she shared with Nami and Vivi. Nojiko thanked him and insisted that she had a great time before getting out of the car, laughing on her way to the door.

Afterwards Sanji, still a bit wet from his time with the river, returned back to his apartment where Zoro, Luffy, Usopp, and Chopper were watching season three of _House_ with 12 empty pizza boxes scattered on the floor beside them, a half empty popcorn bowl on Zoro's lap. As he came in, Zoro looked up at him, took in his appearance and remarked, "That bad huh?"

"She had a good time at least. And I don't really want to talk about it."

"Yeah she would."

"Oh Sanji! You're just in time for the differential!" Luffy shouted. "Although I don't know why, it's so obviously Lupus."

"Luffy, none of the symptoms even remotely resemble Lupus." Chopper rebuffed in all of his doctor knowledge. "It's got to be ragged-red fiber. It's the only thing that makes sense."

"I don't know, Chopper. That heavy metal poisoning sounds pretty good to me." Usopp suggested.

"Geeze Usopp you should know never to go against the diagnosis of a medical genius while watching a show about medicine." Sanji said while settling himself on the couch between Zoro and said genius.

"Sh-shut up! You're praise doesn't make me happy, idiot!" Chopper shouted, clearly thrilled with the praise his blonde friend bestowed upon him.

"Hey, if you damage the couch you're buying a new one." Zoro remarked.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." He said, grabbing the popcorn from Zoro and settling down to Dr. House prove Dr. Chopper's assumption correct.

* * *

**Just incase you were wondering, the episode they were watching was episode seven of season 3, "Son of a Coma Guy," and Chopper was indeed correct.**


	4. Perona

**So, as I was writing this, I realized that I've never mentioned Sanji's cigarette. Ever. Even in my other stories. It's always been there, I've just never bothered to mention it. That changes here! I also threw in some Frobin though, because I like trowing in random Frobin. Don't worry though, Sanji will still get his date with Robin. I totally have a plan _ _**

**Anyway, here's Perona as requested by Splatter Fall. Next up is Hina.  
**

**Reviews!:**

**anzuillison183: **Yeah, I love Sanji and Zoro's scences too. They're so fun to write! And there was that one time it was lupus...awesome episode.

**13.: **Yes, House and One Piece are so awesome that putting them together like that just creates a vortex of awesome the likes of which the world has never known! I'm glad you're enjoying it!

**ShaolinQueen: **Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it so much! I'm glad you liked the ending. It is a good thing Nojiko had fun, that was the whole point anyway, so at least Sanji's not a complet failure ;p

**Splatter Fall: **I'm glad you're enjoying it so much!Yeah, it's pretty unlucky for Sanji, but he's a chef so he's used to fire. :D Zoro is such a manwhore. I personally blame the fandom pairing him with everything that moves. Him and Nami. Unlike Sanji who they only pair with every other thing that moves.

**Krentenbol: **Thank you very much! It's not really that he's a ladykiller per say, he just gets around. A lot. It's got to be the swords or something. And I plan to get to every girl in the One Piece universe eventually, so you can look forward to that!

**dandy wondrous: **Yes, it's a good thing Sanji's friends always got his back. ;)

* * *

"I can't believe you're doing this." Zoro sat at the counter all but glaring at his blonde roommate as Sanji put the last materials into the picnic basket. It wasn't nearly as grand as Nojiko's was, after all Sanji didn't quite know what a night picnic actually entailed, but it was still as extravagant and over the top as most of the dishes the young chef makes for everyone of the female persuasion.

"I can't believe you get paid to get sliced up within an inch of your life, but I'm still living with you." Sanji retorted.

"And yet what you've agreed to do tonight completely overshadows anything that I've ever done ever." Zoro snapped back. "People who are right in the head don't let _Perona_ just show up in the middle of the night and kidnap them!"

"Says the man who spent a whole night in a haunted castle with her…"

"Hey, I couldn't move. At all. If I could have I would have been out of there the second I woke up. You're just letting her waltz on in here and take you god knows where!"

"I thought you were an atheist…"

"That is so not the point." Zoro sighed exasperatedly. "Look, all I'm saying is Perona's tastes are a little…gothic…"

"I know that. I _did_ go to high school with her." Sanji smoothed out the red shirt he was sporting for this occasion before pulling out one of his beloved cigarettes and lighting it.

"I knew you were kind of unstable in high school but…" Sanji threw the spent match at Zoro, who caught it effortlessly. "But seriously, why did you agree to this? Is it the money? 'Cause I know she's loaded but…"

"No! I'd never go out with someone just because of money!" Sanji slammed his hand on the table. "I've told you, she came into the Baratie today. We started talking and decided that we needed to catch up."

"Yeah, 'cause normal people decide that the best way of catching up with old friends is take them on, what did you call? A secret night picnic?"

"That's just what makes it romantic! It's spontaneous and unexpected!"

"Oh, I'm sure it will be." Zoro remarked, rolling his eyes, "nothing screams 'romance' after all like a night picnic with the Goth Princess."

"Hmr, don't call her that." Sanji muttered. He checked to make sure he had everything he wanted in the basket before sauntering over to the other side of the counter and taking a seat next to Zoro. "Besides, she's not all bad, and the whole neo-Goth thing is kinda cute."

More eye rolling. "You would think that." Zoro stretched and yawned. "Anyway, if you're actually going to go through with this, what the hell am I supposed to do for dinner?"

"You, my dear marimo, are a grown man. I'm sure you can manage on your own." At that moment there was a sharp knock on the door. Sanji got up and answered it.

"Mistress Perona is waiting in the care, Master Sanji." An adorable looking but un-cute sounding man said upon the door's opening.

"Okay, I'll be right down." Sanji replied before the man promptly left. Sanji walked back over to the counter to grab the picnic basket, dropping his spent cigarette in the ashtray placed there for such a purpose. "I'm off now."

"Any last words?" Zoro received a kick in the head.

* * *

Sanji was seated in the back seat of the limo facing Perona, the picnic basket in the seat next to him. She was wearing a red mini-skirt with black and white leggings, a white shirt with a skull on it with a red shawl, and her pink hair was tied back into pigtails. Her trademark umbrella was sitting on the seat next to her. The man from before was up front driving after being told to shut up because his talking made him not cute anymore.

"So, do I get to know where we're going yet?" Sanji asked.

"Horohorohoro," Perona laughed, "no, not yet. That would ruin the surprise."

"Of course it would, how silly of me." Sanji remarked. "I haven't seen you in ages though, Perona. It seems like you're holding up well."

"Yeah, Daddy's been teaching me the ins and outs of the 'family business.' It's been pretty tiring actually. I'm glad I was able to get a break to spend some time with you."

"And I as well; you're company is like a shining ray of delight on a cold dreary night." Sanji said. "But you don't seem like the kind of person I'd put at the head of a mafia family, you're far too sweet." If Sanji remembered correctly, and he's pretty sure he does, it was one of the biggest things to hit his high school, Perona's father, Moria was the head of a very prominent mafia family known simply as Thriller Bark.

"Horohorohoro, of course I'm not going to head _that_ family business Sanji dear." Perona stated. "Not that Daddy's ever actually needs it, but Absalom is helping out with _that _side of the family business. I'm being trained for the legitimate side." Absalom, who Sanji was positive he remembered, was Perona's older brother. Other than being a major tool and pervert, he and Sanji always seemed to be beating the crap out of each other. Well, actually it was more like Absalom would do something to purposefully piss Sanji off and Sanji would proceed to beat the ever-loving crap out of him.

"Oh that's good, I wouldn't want someone as lovely as you to be corrupted by such a thing."

"Mistress Perona, we're here."

"Kumacy! What have a told you about talking!? It's super un-cute!" Perona shrieked.

"I'm sorry-I mean…" Perona glared. He shut up.

"Good. Let's go then, Sanji." They both got out of the limo. Sanji looked around and saw that they were at…

"A _cemetery_? We're going to have a night picnic at a cemetery?"

"Not just any cemetery." She smirked. "A _pet_ cemetery."

"How does that make it any less creepy? We're still going to be surrounded by corpses."

"Horohorohoro, silly Sanji. These corpses are cute." With that she proceeded to drag him to the middle of the cemetery. Sanji sighed and went along with it; this still wasn't the creepiest thing he's seen her do after all. She eventually brought them to an open area with a creepy-looking tree by a mausoleum. Sanji wondered who in their right mind would spend that much money to bury their pet, but decided that it wasn't worth thinking about.

They settled down and started eating the delicious masterpiece that Sanji had prepared and started talking. Perona was a bit too delighted for Sanji's tastes to hear that Usopp and Kaya had called it quits while Sanji was more than thrilled to hear that Absalom still had yet to nab a girl. It was going pretty well despite the unusual scenery, which was, of course, when things took a turn for the worse.

Sanji had lit up another cigarette when Perona thought she saw something moving on the side of the mausoleum with the dull, flickering match light and, for some reason, assumed it was a cockroach. It was then that Sanji remembered her katsaridaphobia. She started screaming at the top of her lungs while Sanji hurried to comfort her. He did actually succeed in calming her down after he brought her over to the mausoleum to prove that nothing was there, however her screams brought over the grave keepers (why a freak'n _pet cemetery_ needs grave keepers Sanji will never know), who took the liberty to call the cops, who also showed up. Apparently breaking into a cemetery, even one for pets, is an arrest-able offense. Who knew?

Perona complained the whole ride to the police station. When they got there she demanded that she be allowed to call her father, which she was, of course, granted. Sanji had held off from using his phone call to call someone after Perona insisted that her father would get him out too. While Moria was indeed able to stop them from officially pressing charges, he decided to send Absalom down to the station to pick them up. While he was more than happy to vouch for Perona, he felt that this was the perfect time to exact revenge on Sanji.

"Nope. Sorry. I was only told to come here and pick up Perona. You must have heard my father wrong on the phone when you thought he mentioned this punk." So Sanji was denied release and had to pay a $500 bail. Granted he didn't help his case very much by shouting, "You bastard! Just wait until I get out of here, I'm so gonna kick your ass into next week!" until they left the station.

Sanji sighed. "Can I have my phone call now?"

* * *

Zoro decided to invite Franky, Robin, and Ace over, because if you were going to starve waiting for your roommate to get home and cook something, you might as well do it in a group. Robin, however, had the brilliant suggestion of going out to eat, which the others agreed on. They decided it would be cheaper if they just used Sanji's discount at the Baratie despite the fact that it wasn't nearly as good as when it was his shift. This is where Zoro was when his phone rang. "Hello?"

"Hey Zoro." Zoro freaked when he heard Sanji's voice on the other end; he wasn't suppose just randomly use Sanji's discount when he was off duty because it came out of his next paycheck, but calmed when he heard the next part, "I'm in jail. Can you bring $500 and come pick me up?"

"Oh. Um. Sure. Which one?" Sanji told him. "Oh, and Zoro. Let's just say we're even since you're using my Baratie discount right now."

"What? How'd you figure it out? Did Robin tell you?"

"No, I just told you I'm in freak'n _jail_ and you haven't made a stupid comment or even _tried_ to ask me what happened."

"We weren't going to use $500…"

"Is Ace with you?"

"I'm coming, I'm coming." Zoro hung up and looked in his wallet only to realize he didn't have any money.

"What's up with the curly-cook?" Franky asked.

"He landed himself in jail. Do any of you happen to have $500 on you?"

"How were you planning on pay for dinner without any money?" Ace asked full of suspicion. "I don't see why _we_ have to pay _you_ anything if you were going to skip out on the bill."

"'Cause you would _never_ pull an eat-and-run…"

"Mr. Cook is helping to pay for dinner. Just think of it as paying him back." Robin reasoned.

"Well when you put it that way…Sanji's lucky Robin has reasoning abilities. Just so you know Zoro."

"Yeah, my girl's so smart." Franky kissed her on the check and the faintest of blushes may have appeared on Robin's face.

"Yeah, whatever. Just give me the money."

"Should we meet back at you're place when we're done?"

"Yeah, I guess." Zoro gathered up the money and promptly left the restaurant.

* * *

"I never took you as one for necrophilia, or bestiality for that matter. I'm a pretty open-minded guy but bestiality necrophilia is where I draw the line."

"Shut up."

"Seriously, I think I'm going to have to ask you to move out."

"I said shut up." Zoro laughed. He was going to have fun with this for a while. Sanji sighed. "I hope those guys didn't go to overboard using _my_ discount," he said in an attempt to change the subject.

"It'll be fine; Robin will keep them in line." He managed between giggles. "Besides, they're coming back to our place afterward so they won't eat too much more."

"They better not." Zoro pulled into the parking lot and the two of them made their way up to their apartment. Sure enough, Ace was sitting at the counter while Franky and Robin were cuddling on the couch. They all saw Sanji and started laughing.

"When did you call them?"

"You took a long time to come out."

"Hey Sanji, I know we aren't dead animals or anything like that, but you wouldn't mind if we hand out here tonight would you?" Ace got a kick in the face as Sanji made his way over to the kitchen area to cook for his so-called-friends.

* * *

**For those of you who couldn't guess by the context, katsaridaphobia ****is the fear of learn something new everyday.**


	5. Hina

**I had some trouble with this one between work, writer's block, and One Piece finally being scanlated. Anyway, here's Hina as requested by ShaolinQueen. **

**Reviews:**

**Splatter Fall: **Thanks! I'm glad your enjoying it and I hope this one doesn't disappoint.

**anzuillision183: **Yeah, I got lucky and inspired during a time when I'm not that busy. Finals are coming up soon, so updates will become less frequent unfortunately. And yeah, I know. That's why it's there; Frobin is awesom. ;p

**Teee hehehe: **Thanks. I'm glad you enjoyed it, and thank you for your constructive criticism. I actually didn't notice I was shattering the fourth wall that much, so I'll keep it in mind.

**ShaolinQueen: **Thank you! I hope this is to your liking.

**sentimentalreality: **Thanks! I'm glad your liking it and I hope you enjoy this one too.

**dandy wondrous: **He got out though, so it's all good. Thank you for reminding me about Conis; I'm sure I would have gotten to her eventually, but now I can start planning!

**I don't own One Piece, and since I forgot this last chapter I'll say it again. I don't own One Piece. **

* * *

"Why does it seem like no matter where you are you _always_ manage meet a girl?"

Sanji just laughed. He was currently making Zoro's dinner, since the man absolutely _refused _to make his own now that he had moved in with a cook, before he left for his next outing. Said man was sitting on the couch clutching his DS playing Tetris. "I guess it's just my charisma and good humor that makes women fall for me left and right."

"More like you're so pathetic that they pity you." Zoro mumbled. "Still, I gotta admit, it does take a certain something to be able to pick up a girl while you in _jail_."

"A certain amount of awesome," Sanji stated while finishing stirring some sauce. "It was clearly fate that I was able to meet the lovely Miss Hina despite my unfortunate circumstances."

Zoro laughed and mumbled something that sounded vaguely like "pet cemetery" before saying, "I wouldn't get your hopes up so much. Considering your track record and all…"

"It's a movie date! What could possible go wrong?"

"You never know…"

"I am prepared for absolutely everything this time!" Just then the sauce somehow exploded all over Sanji. Zoro tried his very best to not roll on the floor and laugh his ass off, but failed miserably.

"What the hell?" Sanji checked the spices that were still out by what was left of the sauce only to discover that someone had replaced his paprika with something he couldn't quite give a name to. "Hey Marimo, what happened to my paprika?"

"Wuzzat?" Sanji held up the bottle. "Oh that stuff. Usopp took it for something and ended up using all of it so I just replaced it with some other amber-looking powder that was lying around."

Sanji's face might have turned red; it was hard to tell with the sauce covering his face like that. Either way he proceeded to storm over to where Zoro was and start kicking him within inches of his life while saying, "You. Don't. Replace. My. Spices. With. Random. Crap. From. Usopp's. Lab."

Zoro stood up and started to defend himself. "Right, right, okay, won't do it again. But it should still be fine!"

"Fine!? I don't even know what the hell that powder is! It could be toxic! The sauce is inedible now!" Sanji screeched while puncturing each sentence with a kick to Zoro's various regions.

"Then just make some more." A sharp kick to the head caught Zoro off guard and he fell to the floor.

"Like I'm making anything else for you! Go find your own dinner!" With that Sanji stormed off to the bathroom to clean up.

"Tch." Zoro went back to the couch and picked up his DS and was going to settle back down and play, but instead shut it and headed over to the kitchen area. How hard could this be anyway?

That's where Sanji found him after he immerged from his room 30 minutes later wearing a turquoise shirt with his black slacks. He stared at Zoro's back warily as he slowly made his way back to the counter where he left his jacket. When he got there he asked "What are you doing?"

Zoro turned around. "What does it look like I'm doing? Since you keep complaining I'm making dinner." Sanji went around to the other side of the counter and sampled whatever Zoro had in the same pot that Sanji had used before for the sauce. It looked like some threw up in it after downing several bowls of stew and numerous cans of cat food and tasted not far off. He immediately picked up the pot and dumped it into the sink. "Hey! What are you doing?!" Zoro exclaimed.

"Stupid. You don't use an unwashed pot for a new dish. And what the hell was in that anyway?"

"Just some stuff from the fridge. It was fine!"

Sanji glared at him before looking at the clock and sighing. "The movie's starting in an hour. I've gotta go pick Hina up. If you still insist to play around in my kitchen at least call someone over to make sure you don't blow it up."

With that he left. Zoro muttered something about not needing a babysitter in his own apartment before taking out his cell. "Hey Luffy. Wanna come over for a bit?"

* * *

Sanji arrived at Hina's apartment complex in a timely manner. He buzzed up for her and she came down quickly, looking adorable in a cute magenta shirt with jeans and violet shoes. "You look adorable, Miss Hina." He wasted no time telling her. "Shall we be off?" he said while offering her his arm.

"Yes. Hina's ready." She said taking his arm.

The walk there (the theater was only a few blocks away) was quite pleasant. Sanji told Hina about his restaurant and all of the interesting customers he got while Hina told him about some equally interesting arrests that she made. Spring was in the air, flowers were blooming, and all in all the whole atmosphere was rather enjoyable.

They got to the theater and bought their tickets, two sodas, and a large bucket of popcorn for them to share. Sanji thought he saw a certain pink-haired customer of his that he hated with a man wearing the strangest glasses he had ever seen, but it was probably just his imagination; had to be. They ended up getting to their seats just before the movie started. It was some stupid zombie move that Hina picked out, but Sanji didn't really care; scary movies were good date movies anyway.

After about 20 minutes of painfully inadequate storytelling, Sanji had taken to just staring at Hina rather than watching the movie. Hina seemed to be enjoying it though, laughing at all the obvious special effects and predictable path the story was taking. Sanji was taking pleasure in her laugh so much that he didn't notice at first that someone was throwing something at him. He did eventually though, and turned around to find that customer that he hated with his friend sitting right behind him.

This guy (Sanji thought his name was Fullbody, but he never actually bothered to remember it, so he couldn't say for sure) really pissed Sanji off. Sanji first encountered him when he came into the Baratie with his date, complained about some bug in his soup, and proceeded to make a mess of his and his date's meal. Sanji lost it at that point and kicked his ass. If he wasn't such a valuable asset to the restaurant's survival he would have been fired on the spot, but he didn't care; this jerk was annoying. He's popped up a few more times in Sanji's life, but he hasn't bothered to notice. Why he was here annoying him now though…

Sanji decided to take the high road and ignore the two of them after shooting them a glare. He turned back to the movie, but after only a few minutes they started throwing more popcorn at him. Patience running thin, he tried his hardest to concentrate on the movie. If it had actually been a good one, this strategy might have worked, but as it was, Sanji was too distracted by the idiots behind him. Deciding to deal with this, he shot them a look, excused himself and excited the theater. The other two followed.

"What the hell is your problem?" Sanji said when they were out of the darkness of the theater, "I'm not even serving soup today!"

"That's got nothing to do this! We just don't appreciate how you're all over Captain Hina like that!" Fullbody stated while his partner agreed. "You should back off!"

"Back off? What is this, high school?! I can date whoever I damn well please and you're not getting in my way." Sanji stepped forward ominously.

The two of them backed off, but still glared him down. Sanji raised his leg, ready to divvy out some serious damage to these to losers interfering with his date with Hina when all of a sudden…

"What are you two doing here? This makes me angry. Hina angry."

All three of them looked at the theater door that Hina had just appeared from. She was standing with her hands on her hips, looking absolutely adorable but still slightly threatening to the three men present.

"But…Captain…we heard you were going out with this pervert and-" Fullbody began before Sanji interrupted with a shout of "Pervert! I'll show you pervert!" and lunged forward before Hina told him to stop, which he did.

"Hina is an adult and can take care of herself." Hina stated. "Hina was actually having an enjoyable time. Hina won't be able to forgive this." Fullbody and friend backed up into the wall under her glare. "Sanji," she turned towards him, "unfortunately attempting to assault any officer, no matter how stupid they are, it a crime, and Hina must punish crime. Hina punishment."

Sanji gawked at her for a moment. "However, seeing as they were asking for it, Hina can forgive you. Hina forgiveness."

"Of course someone as lovely as you would find it in your heart to forgive me." Sanji cooed. The idiot duet glared.

"Hina will have to cut this date short though. Hina needs to make sure her subordinates stop stalking her when she's off duty."

"Of course." Sanji said, not letting the disappointment in his face reach his voice. "Maybe we can continue this some other time?"

"Hina is very busy with work. Hina busy." She said. "Hina doesn't get a lot of time off."

"Oh, yeah, right." He remembered it took a lot of schedule shifting for her to come out with him today, but it still didn't help his feeling of rejection.

"Hina did enjoy herself though." She gave him a kiss on the check (Sanji blushed a little) before walking over to her subordinates, turning around to face Sanji and saying, "you might want to leave for this. Hina doesn't want any witnesses."

"Right, yeah, I'll just go then."

* * *

Sanji got back to his apartment to the smell of something half-burning. He remembered that Zoro was trying to cook something before he left and cautiously stepped inside. Luffy, Usopp, Brook, and Zoro were gathered around the stove staring at something. Sanji cleared his throat and four heads shot up to stare at him.

"What's going on…?" Sanji asked hesitantly.

"You said to invite someone over to stop me from blowing up the kitchen. And aren't you home early? The movie's not supposed to be over for another half hour or so."

"Yeah well, some of her subordinates were stalking her and tried to beat me up."

"So same old same old?"

"Yeah pretty much. So, why are you all here again?"

"We're making pasta!" Luffy said. Sanji looked at them questioningly.

"Zoro called Luffy and said that you didn't want him in the kitchen alone and asked Luffy to come and help him look." Usopp explained. "I, in all of my superior reasoning skills, realized the foolishness of having Luffy and Zoro trying to cook something and decided to accompany him to spare your kitchen."

"I ran into them on the way here and decided to join them since I haven't eaten yet." Brook said. "I hope I'm not being a bother…"

"Of course not, I was just wondering why it takes four people to make pasta…"

"It's harder than it looks." Usopp said. "Of course, Luffy didn't help much by trying to eat everything at various points in the process."

"It just looked so good…" Zoro hit him on the head with the wooden spoon he was holding.

"Have you eaten yet Sanji?" Brook questioned. "Despite our setbacks, there's plenty here."

"Are you sure it's edible?" Sanji smirked as he sat down on the other side of the counter. Zoro plopped some on a plate and put it in front of Sanji before dividing the rest for the others.

Sanji stared at it; it _looked_ enough like normal spaghetti, but with both Usopp and Luffy working on the concoction he couldn't be sure what was in it. "What's in it?"

"Just try it you pansy cook." Everyone was looking at him expectantly, so he took a forkful and put it in his mouth.

It wasn't that bad. It didn't hold a candle to his of course, the pasta was a bit undercooked and the sauce was weak, but tasted like spaghetti and there weren't traces of anything that could be lethal in it, so overall it was passable. Besides it was nice having his friends cook for him for once. "It's edible I suppose."

Luffy grinned his maniac grin, Brook let out a hearty "Yohoho," Usopp looked relieved that he wasn't sailing through the nearest wall with a foot up his ass, and Zoro just smirked. "That's high praise coming from you."

"Humph." Sanji continued eating. The others joined him.


	6. Alvida

**Yeah, so here's Alvida as requested by Krentenbol, which actually also turned into a two-in-one thing, which actually works out quite well for me, even if it is a lot shorter than the others. Oh well, Miss Valentine is next I believe.**

**Reviews:**

**dandy wondrous: **Yeah, I decided to give him a break and have something kind of go right. Fullbody got his ass-kicking though, even if Sanji wasn't the one to deliver it.

**debzzz: **Thanks I'm glad you're enjoying it so much! Did not know that about the phobias though; I just assumed it was Latin. Oh well, now I know some greek. :)

**ReadR: **Thanks I'm glad you like it! And I added your suggestions to my list.

* * *

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Sanji opened the door and came rushing into the apartment, waking up Zoro who was sleeping on the couch. "Morning already?"

"It's three in the afternoon you lazy ass." Sanji replied rushing here and there looking for something.

"Well what got your panties in a bunch?" Zoro remarked before yawning widely.

"Have you seen my sunglasses?" Sanji asked tearing through some drawers in the kitchen area.

"Um…no? Are they in your room?" Sanji ran off to check there. Zoro followed. "Why do you need them anyway?"

"I met this really hot girl who's waiting just outside and we were going to go for a walk in the park but I needed my sunglasses and since it was on the way she agreed to stop for a bit and let me run up and grab them but it's completely useless if I can't find them!" Sanji explained in one breath.

"Huh, really?" Zoro decided to help the search by tossing a pile of papers on a nearby nightstand on the floor. "Anyone I know?"

"I wouldn't be surprised." Sanji muttered. "Her name's Alvida."

Zoro faltered. "_Alvida_? As in Iron Mace Alvida?"

"Yeah that sounds right. She almost got me with her bottle of mace when I first tried to talk to her."

"Yeah, well, she's one crazy chick."

Sanji rolled his eyes. "You say that about everyone."

"This time I mean it. She was stalking Luffy throughout his senior year in college. Ace had to force him to get a restraining order."

"Everyone's a little crazy in college." Sanji got on the floor and checked under the bed.

"She used to be fat. She's gotten loads of plastic surgery."

Sanji got up and shrugged, heading over to the closet. "Now her outer beauty is a more accurate reflection of her inner beauty."

"A guy like you would think up something like that." He said opening some drawers and digging through them.

"Only because it's true." He turned around and walked over to where Zoro was standing to grab his sunglasses out of his roommate's back pocket. Putting them on, he left the room shouting over his shoulder, "Clean up the mess you made before I get back."

Zoro looked around the chef's room. Clothes and papers were spewed across the floor among other things. He headed out of the room to where Sanji had started his search, where more junk was spewed randomly across the floor, furniture, counter, and even the walls for some reason. Zoro's eye twitched.

* * *

Sanji skidded to a halt in front of Alvida. She was wearing pink and white striped pants with matching sandals, a purple shirt, and a classy white cowboy hat. The whole ensemble made her look, in Sanji's opinion, simply gorgeous.

"Sorry I took so long my dear, a stupid plant held me up."

"It's quite alright. I was just getting to know your neighbors a little." She said, winking at the group of men from Sanji's building that had gathered around in his absence.

"Who is the most beautiful woman you've every laid eyes on?" Alvida felt the need to ask.

"Clearly it's you!" they all shouted in complete unison. Sanji wondered briefly if it was planned.

"Hey assholes get lost! You're ruining Alvida's beauty with your filthy eyes!" he shouted while stepping forward threateningly. Everyone scattered. "Shall we be off then?"

"I suppose." She sauntered off in the direction of the park while Sanji eagerly followed behind her.

They made it to the park in complete silence. Well, almost complete silence; Sanji gawking and drooling wasn't exactly silent. When they got there all of the on lookers turned to stare at this voluptuous woman who had decided to grace their presence until Sanji shot them a venomous glare and they all turned back to whatever was preoccupying their time before. Alvida just laughed.

"Come on, let's go." She hurried off while Sanji enthusiastically followed. "So, you work at that restaurant?" she asked.

"Indeed. I hold the position of Sous chef, although technically I am the co-owner, so-"

"Really?" Alvida asked excitedly. "So you must be loaded right? That seemed like a pretty high-class place."

"No, it's unfortunate really, but I only have certain controlling interests within the restaurant. I won't actually get any money other than my salary from it until I become the sole owner, but-"

"Oh," she said, no longer interested, "it would have been fun if you were cute and rich."

Sanji's mind only picked up that she had called him cute. "It's an honor that someone as gorgeous as you thinks so much of me! But tell, me, what is it that you do?"

"Does it really matter?" she asked flashing him a smile.

"Of course not!" He crooned.

Just then a little girl with brown hair and brown eyes darted out in front of them. Sanji stopped, but Alvida crashed into her, sending the little girl tumbling to the ground. Needless to say she started crying, the girl that is. Alvida got her bearings and scoffed, "Humph. Stupid girl, getting in my way. Someone make her stop crying!" All the men in the vicinity lunged forward to help but ended up in a tumbled mess on the ground.

Sanji crouched down next to the little girl and saw that she had scraped her knee. He put his hand on her shoulder and gently said, "Hey sweetie, what's your name?"

She sniffled. "R-rika."

"Rika huh? That's a pretty name. My name's Sanji." Rika smiled a little, but was still tearing. "Where are your parents, Miss Rika?" She shakily pointed somewhere on the other side of the park. "Do you want me to take you to them?" She nodded. "First we should do something about your knee don't you think? Can you stand?" She nodded, did so, and then grabbed his hand. He stood too and turned to face Alvida. "Sorry, but I should make sure she gets back to her parents…I'll be back soon though."

"Do what you want." Alvida turned and walked off, followed by at least six different guys. Sanji sighed and turned to face Rika. "I guess that means you're my date now." Rika laughed a little. "C'mon, let's get you cleaned up."

Sanji took Rika to the first aid station where the cleaned and bandaged the wound on her knee. On her way back to wherever her parents where, Sanji spotted an ice cream stand. He asked if Rika wanted some, which of course she did, so Sanji bought her a strawberry cone while he himself had a cookies and cream one. They sat on a park bench finishing them up when Sanji spotted Alvida talking it up with some random clown. Sanji sighed.

"Mr. Sanji," Rika shyly said, "I'm sorry I ruined your date with the mean lady."

Sanji smiled at her. "It's not your fault Rika. I probably would have ruined it anyway." Sanji laughed. "Besides, I'm having a much better time hanging out with you." Rika smiled.

"C'mon," he said, putting the last of his cone in his mouth. "Let's get you back to your parents before they think I kidnapped you."

Rika laughed at that. "They won't think that Mr. Sanji."

They did.

Rika's mom ran over and grabbed Rika from Sanji's grasp as soon as they were in sight. Rika's dad came over and started shouting some very obscene things in Sanji's face. Sanji tried to explain what had happened, but before he could, Rika's dad threw a punch. Sanji was able to dodge at and was about to launch an attack of his own when Rika shouted "Daddy stop! Don't hurt Mr. Sanji!" She then proceeded to explain what had happened in hysterics. After her explanation and the awkward silence that followed, Rika's parents apologized and thanked him. He accepted their thanks roughly, left the park, and headed home.

* * *

Sanji returned home to find Nami, Robin, and Chopper cleaning his apartment while Zoro was asleep on the couch. He said hi to the girls and Chopper before walking over to where Zoro was lying and kicked him in the gut. Zoro yawned. "Morning already?"

"It's five in the afternoon! And when I said I wanted the place clean when I got back, I meant _you_ do it, not for your responsibilities onto the lovely Nami Swan and Robin Nico!"

"I'm helping too…" added Chopper.

"It doesn't matter as long as it gets clean does it?"

"It's fine, Mr. Cook." Robin said. "We don't mind cleaning."

"Although it would be nice if someone helped instead of sleeping…" Nami added, glaring at Zoro.

"Sheesh, you told me to stay out of your way and not mess anything up."

"I meant go clean something else, not plop on the couch and fall asleep!"

"Sanji…" Chopper said, pulling on his pant leg, "I'm hungry."

"Yeah me too." Zoro said. Nami hit him on the head.

"You haven't done anything!"

"Ow that hurt!"

"I'm feeling slightly puckish as well." Robin added.

Sanji glanced at the clock. "I'm not really in a cooking mood right now, do you all mind if we go out to eat instead?"

"Nope!" Said Chopper.

"That sounds nice." Added Robin.

"You better be paying though." Insisted Nami.

"Of course, my precious Nami Swan!"

"Stupid cook." Sanji kicked Zoro's head. "Ow! What did I do?"

They all grabbed their stuff and went out to enjoy the night.


	7. Miss Valentine

**So, I've been five types of stressed this week, so sorry for the lateness...laterness. This is Miss Valentine as requested by Krentenbol. Next up is suppose to be Miss Monday, but I think it will be cooler to post that on a Monday, so I'll probably skip ahead to Miss Goldenweek this weekend because it's Goldenweek and I think it's better that way too.**

**Reviews:**

**debuzz: **Yeah, he does seem to have more fun with his friends. Friendship romance I guess, at least in this fic. I'm looking forward to Boa too. :)

**dandy wonderous:** Thanks. And I just realized that Luffy landed on an island filled with women. I guess I'll have to make a restriction of only girls with an actual personality can date Sanji. :p

**Krentenbol: **Thank you, and I hope this can live up to your expectations. No, I'm not scared, I'm actually thriving off of your enthusiasm; it's feeding my soul. :D

**ohlordies:** Thank you very much!

**Shaolin Queen: **Thank you. I decided to cut the man some slack. And I always thought Sanji would make an awesome Dad, if the way he interacts with the filler kids is any indication.

**sentimentalreality: **Thanks! And that means I'm doing my job as a writer to make you pity Sanji. :)

**And I don't own One Piece.  
**

* * *

Zoro and Luffy were sitting on the couch watching a random cartoon in which Humpty Dumpty was being chased by two random children for a reason that was never adequately explained. Luffy was laughing like a maniac at the silly antics while Zoro was dozing away, not quite sleeping due to the loud curses coming from his roommate's room. Sanji was supposed to be getting ready for his date this afternoon, but was spending more effort cleaning out his closet.

"Hey, Zoro." Luffy asked over Sanji's curses.

"Hm?"

"Why is Humpty Dumpty an egg?"

"What?" Zoro was confused.

"Why is Humpty Dumpty always an egg?"

"It's in the rhyme isn't it?"

"Oh." A few seconds later, "Wait, where?"

Zoro sighed. "Look, Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall right?"

"Yeah."

"And then he had a great fall." A few more loud curses from came from Sanji's room.

"And…"

"And then no one could put him back together again. Cause when an egg breaks, you can't put it back together again."

"I guess." He turned back to the TV. "But wait-if I pushed you off a wall and you had a great fall, I don't think Chopper would be able to put you back together again."

Zoro thought about it for a bit. Sanji cursed some more. "Huh. Never thought about that. I guess it'd be pretty traumatizing for kids to have to imagine a human bleeding all over the place though. So I guess the egg is just a way to make the rhyme more humane."

"Why didn't you just say that in the first place?"

Zoro was about to respond but was interrupted by Sanji's loudest shout yet of "GOD DAMNIT!" and the blonde bursting into the room holding what looked like a miniature alligator by its tail with a bleeding hand.

"WHAT THE HELL IS THIS AND WHY IS IT IN MY CLOSET!?"

Zoro and Luffy looked up. "So that's where Fluffy went." commented Luffy.

"Fluffy?! FLUFFY!? You're Fluffy almost bit my freak'n HAND off! What the hell is it doing in _my_ closet anyway?!"

"I dunno. I brought him over to feed him. He must have crawled into your closet when I dropped him at the door."

Sanji blinked then glared before walking over to the window and tossing the alligator out.

"Fluffy!"

"We're on the 4th floor you know." Zoro said.

Luffy ran over to the window and looked down. "He's okay. He landed in the bushes. Oh look, he's making some new friends!" Sanji looked out the window two. The miniature alligator was baring its teeth at some passing pedestrians, who were cowering behind some trashcans. One had managed to pull out a taser and held it shakily towards the alligator. He kicked Luffy upside the head.

"Go stop him or I'm never cooking for you again!" Luffy paled for a bit then ran out the door.

Zoro, who had made his way over to the kitchen to get the first aid kit, motioned for Sanji to sit at the counter, which he did, while Zoro started bandaging his hand. "Why are you so stressed?"

"I don't know, maybe the fact that there was a fricken _alligator_ in my closet had something to do with it!"

"Dude, chill. He's brought worse things into our apartment."

Sanji sighed. "I guess." Zoro tied off the bandage and made his way to the fridge. Sanji put his head in his hands. Zoro took out the materials for a sandwich and plopped them in front of the chef, who looked at him. After a few moments of silence where they just stared at each other, Sanji sighed again and started to make some sandwiches.

"I don't know why you're so stressed about your little date with Miss Valentine today." Zoro commented as he leaned against the sink.

"I am _not_ nervous."

"Sure, that's why you've been throwing a hissy hit all morning."

"There was an _alligator_ in my closet!"

"I hear that thing happens all the time in Florida."

"We do not live in Florida! Where did Luffy even get an alligator anyway?"

Zoro shrugged. "Y'know, if you're afraid of heights, it's not too late to back out."

"I am not afraid of heights, I'm not backing out, and I am most certainly _not_ nervous."

"Then what's with the attitude?"

"People keep putting weird stuff in my closet!"

"You find one alligator in your closet-"

"Not just alligators!" Sanji reached into his pocket and pulled out a cloth bag, which he opened up to reveal numerous glass eyes of varying shapes and sizes.

"Huh, I've been looking for those." Sanji glared at his green-haired roommate.

"What do you need glass eyes for?"

Zoro shrugged. "I thought I left them at Franky's though."

Sanji closed the bag and tossed it at him. "There was loads of other stuff like that too."

"Did you ever consider the fact that your closet opens up to another dimension?" Zoro asked with the most serious look on his face.

Sanji glared at him. "Stop putting weird stuff in my closet!" He pushed a finished sandwich in his direction, which the other man accepted. Sanji looked at his watch before exclaiming, "Shit, I gotta go," grabbing Zoro's keys, and running out the door.

* * *

When he arrived at the amusement park where he and the lovely Miss Valentine agreed to meet, called Lucky Joe's Amusement and Recreational Park, she was already waiting for him, wearing a striking yellow dress, earrings that reminded Sanji of lemons, and a matching hat and umbrella. Sanji was glad he decided on the yellow shirt and matching tie today; he liked matching his dates.

"My lovely, lovely Valentine, how are you doing on this fine afternoon?" He asked while dancing over to her.

"Kyahahaha." She laughed at his antics. "Very well. And how about yourself?"

"Most excellent now that I am in your wonderful presence!" he replied, purchasing there tickets.

She noticed his hand. "What happened to your hand?"

"Oh this? My friends pet got a bit too friendly. Think nothing of it."

"Kyahaha." She laughed.

They entered the park and grabbed a map by the entrance. After looking at it for a bit, they decided to head over to the Forest-themed sector of the park and ride the teacups first, those being Miss Valentine's favorite ride. They waited in line, talking about their interests and other such nonsense, and before they knew it they were on the ride, spinning uncontrollably fast. When they got off, they were both insanely dizzy but laughing their heads off and took a breather to grab an overpriced hot dog and sit down on a bench before heading off to ride the Tunnel of Love, Sanji's favorite ride. It was nice and peaceful (although Sanji didn't get to steal a kiss like he planned) and the pair felt up for a roller coaster.

"We could try this one." Sanji said, pointing at the wooden coaster in the section of the park with a Spanish theme to it. "It's still pretty new though, so there will probably be a long line."

"I want to ride that one." She said, pointing at the roller coaster in the Jungle sector.

Sanji blinked. "That's the tallest, fastest coaster in the world."

"Yeah, I like the weightless feeling coasters give before making you feel really heavy." She looked up him and laughed before saying, "what are you scared?"

"No, I would just hate if something went wrong and you ended up hurt."

"Kyahahaha. They have safety regulations for a reason Sanji. We'll be fine."

"The line's probably going to be huge at this time of day though. It's only a 12 second ride."

"It's worth the wait. C'mon let's go!"

"Well, if you insist my dear." He grabbed her hand and they ran off in the direction of the coaster. When they got there they waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

Sanji didn't really care because he was in the lovely Miss Valentine's presence, but she was getting a little antsy.

"Why is it taking so long? Did it break down again?"

"Maybe." He said not really paying attention. Miss Valentine smelled citrusy and he was a bit distracted.

All of a sudden there was an explosion in the distance. An announcement came on the PA saying, "Attention all Lucky Joe customers. We have reports of a bomber in the park. Please don't panic and make your way to the nearest exit. Thank you and enjoy the rest of your day!" Needless to say, everyone started panicking.

"Oh, he said he wasn't going to do this today…" Miss Valentine said before running off in the direction of the explosion. Refusing to even attempt to leave until he knew she would be safe, Sanji followed.

The explosion lead them to the movie themed section of the park where they saw various SWAT team members surrounding a building with a tall man with crazy black hair wearing sun glasses and a red coat was waving bombs around everywhere.

Miss Valentine stopped and gasped at the scene. Sanji stopped beside her. She turned, not noticing that he followed her and screamed, "What are you doing?! Get out of here!" This turned everyone's attention towards the pair of them.

"I can't leave knowing a lady such as yourself would be left in mortal danger!" he declared.

"Sis? What are you doing here!" the bomber shouted.

"That's what I should be asking you! You said you wouldn't do this today!"

"It has to be done! Society needs to learn a lesson, and this is the only way!"

"You two with him?" A SWAT member asked.

"He's my brother!" Miss Valentine screamed at him "What do you think you guys are doing to him anyway!?"

The next thing Sanji knew he and Miss Valentine were in handcuffs and being escorted off the premises. The only thing Sanji could think though was _crap, now Zoro's going to have to bail me out…again._

* * *

Zoro was feeding crumbs to Fluffy while watching TV with Luffy when he heard _Kiss the Girl_ playing in the background. He was confused for all of five seconds before he realized that it was his cell phone.

"Tash, what's up?"

"Zoro," his friend answered, "you're going to need to come down to the station."

"I thought you said you cleared that up!"

"I did. This is something else."

"Oh." He relaxed a bit. "What's up then?"

"Sanji's being held on suspicion concerning the bombing that happened at Lucky Joe's Amusement and Recreational Park today."

"He's not a bomber. Why can't you get him out?"

"I'm trying, but he's not being very cooperative."

"What? But you've got boobs and stuff!"

Tashigi sighed very audibly through the phone. "I'm not the one directly speaking to him. Captain Smoker is."

"That prick? I'd be uncooperative too."

"He's not a prick! He's just doing his job."

"He's being a prick now. He knows Sanji wouldn't try to blow up an amusement park."

"He personally knows Sanji isn't responsible for anything, but like I said, he's just doing his job."

It was Zoro's turn to sigh. "What do I have to do to get that idiot off then?"

"Just come down and give a character statement. It should be enough; it's pretty obvious that he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"Then why is he being held there?"

"It's just a formality thing. We're just-"

"Doing your jobs. I get it. I'll be right there." He hung up the phone. "Luffy, c'mon. Sanji landed himself in jail."

"How are we getting there? He took you're car." Zoro then remembered this fact.

"I guess we're walking then."

* * *

Two hours of completely pointless questioning later and he was still staring at Smoker's face. From the looks of things Sanji wasn't getting out of there anytime soon either.

"Look, you know me. I'm not nearly disturbed enough to try to blow anything up. Can I go yet?"

"We've been over this, it doesn't matter what I think. We have to take precautions and you're smug ass attitude isn't helping you any!" Smoker snapped.

"Since when did you become such a stickler for the rules? Or are you now the higher-ups little doggie since you're up for promotion?" Smoker slammed the table and stood up, running his hands through his hair.

"Why are you making this so damn difficult? Is it the girl?"

"She's an innocent too! You shouldn't be locking us up like this!"

"Her and her brother were members of the terrorist group Baroque Works. Innocent is the last thing she is!"

"I refuse to help you incriminate her." Smoker punched the wall.

"Are you willing to go down with her? Moria may have gotten you're previous charges officially dropped from the record, but that just made the higher-ups more determined to get you locked up. Are you really willing to go down for your stupid chivalry?" Sanji remained silent. Smoker was so to throttling him, but a knock on the door interrupted.

"What?" Smoker barked. Tashigi entered.

"Captain Smoker. They said you can let him go."

"What? How? Why?"

"Zoro explained everything."

"What?" Both Sanji and Smoker exclaimed, "What does Zoro know about any of this?"

"Um…" Tashigi looked taken aback at their unison, "nothing really. He just explained how Sanji was kind of an idiot when it came to girls, no offense Sanji"

"How could anything that comes out of your mouth offend me?" He said, proving the point.

"Anyway, Hina backed him up on that, so they decided to let him go."

"Just like that?" Smoker asked.

"Just like that."

Smoker sighed. "Well Blackleg, looks like you're off the hook for now. Just don't expect it to be as easy for you next time."

"That's what she said."

Smoker punched him in the face.

* * *

Sanji emerged sporting a black eye and muttering something about being hostile towards suspects. Luffy was able to flag him down with a shout of "HEY! SANJI!" so he walked over to him and Zoro.

"How many times am I going to have to save your ass from prison?"

"About as many times as I've had to get you're drunken ass out of county." Zoro shut up.

"Sanji, I'm hungry! Can we get something to eat now?"

"Sure." They walked outside where Fluffy was tied up to a bike rack, chewing on a bike's tire. "You brought the alligator."

"Yeah, apparently someone has a problem with alligators in their closet." Zoro said. Sanji kicked him.

"Where's your car anyway?" Sanji asked. "I know the confiscated it when they brought me in but…"

"Relax, Tash got it back. C'mon let's go feed Luffy before he eats Fluffy."

The three friends and the alligator got into the car and drove off.

* * *

**Side note: If Lucky Joe's Amusement and Recreational Park reminded you of Six Flags Great Adventure in anyway, well, that's because I've been there a lot and know the layout and stuff really well. Although they don't have a tunnel of love.  
**


	8. Miss Goldenweek

**So, here's Miss Goldenweek as requested by me as something I wanted. Weird. I'll try to get Miss Monday up tomorrow, but we'll see how it goes.**

**I couldn't find a good place to end this, so it kinda goes on, and the ending is awkward. I'm very sorry for that.  
**

**Reviews:**

**ShaolinQueen: **Thank you! Yes, Tashigi's coming up soon. I've had the idea for a while, so I'm very excited about it. I've got some plans for that date. *smirks evilly*.

**Splatter Fall: **Yeah, I don't like FL all that much; too hot for me. Lovely state other wise. Thank you. It's nice to know Fluffy has a fan, he has a cameo in this chapter too. And sure you can hold him, but watch out; he bites. XD

**dandy wondrous: **Yeah plot twists are fun, and that was indeed Mr. 5, you got your numbers right. Mr. 3 makes a cameo in this chapter too, if you can catch it. Yes, I confess: When Zoro isn't paired with Sanji, I prefer him paired with Tashigi. Sanji goes with Nami if he's not with Zoro, incase you were wondering.

**debuzz: **Thank you! I'm glad you're enjoying it so much. The alligator seems to be everyones friend, and yeah, I totally planned the naming pun (had no idea until later). GAH! I'm sorry! Sometimes I zone out and use the wrong your/their/to, but Word is supposed to pick those up for me! I'll go back and fix them later if I have time.

**ohlordies: **Thank you, I gladly accept all of the sparkles and hearts the world can give me. :D

**Now, if you excuse me, I need to go watch Law, Kidd, and Luffy kick some ass.**

**Oh, and I don't own One Piece.  
**

* * *

Sanji was sleeping quite deeply on the couch after a very long evening at work when there was a knock on the door. He turned a bit in his sleep, but Zoro, who was up making coffee, went to open the door, only to reveal their eccentric, transvestite neighbor.

"Zoro darling! How are you on this fine morning?" Bon Clay said as he twirled into the apartment uninvited. A young girl wearing red shorts, a blue shirt with clouds on it, and a pink hat on top of brown twin braids carrying a backpack followed him silently in.

"Fine, Bon. Just fine. But could you keep it down a bit." Zoro closed the door quietly and gestured toward the couch where Sanji, upon Bon Clay's entrance, he had turned over to face the back of the couch and thrown an arm across his face.

"Oh, another long night shift huh?" Bon Clay looked down at him sympathetically. "He needs all of the sleep he can get. San dear! We'll just let you sleep then!"

"**Go…die…**" Sanji muttered, now awake but refusing to get up.

Zoro shook his head and poured Bon Clay and Sanji a cup of coffee. The girl had already seated herself at one of the stools at the counter and was helping herself to a cracker on the table, staring at Zoro. Zoro, never one to back down from a challenge no matter who instigated it, stared right back at her.

Bon Clay forced Sanji off of the couch upon realizing his awakened state, bringing him over to the counter and plopped him on the stool next to the girl before helping himself to the coffee Zoro offered. Zoro also placed a cup in front of his less then chipper roommate, who just glared at the intrusion of his sleep as if he could fry the man's brain simply by staring hard enough.

"**Why are you here?**" Sanji asked through gritted teeth. He was not much of a morning person.

"What excuse does one need to want to come and visit his friends?" Bon Clay answered innocently.

Zoro, who was still staring at the girl, felt the need to ask, "Who's she?"

Sanji turned to face her instantly, not noticing her before in his sleep-deprived-and-forced-awakening state.

"She's my niece, April Goldenweek." Bon Clay said. "She's visiting me for the weekend. Actually, she's part of the reason I'm visiting on this lovely morning." Sanji turned back to face him with a death glare. "It completely slipped my mind! I have an appointment today that will eat up most of my time, so I can't watch her today…"

"**Don't shirk your responsibilities off-**" Sanji began.

"Sure we'll look after her!" Zoro said, as if nothing else would make his day better.

"Oh, I knew I could count on you two! You're the best friends a transvestite can have!" He hugged Zoro then twirled over to hug Sanji too, only to receive a kick in the ribs and be sent flying across the living room. He immediately got up and straitened himself out and twirled back over to the kitchen as if nothing had happened. "Well I'll be off. April, be good, I'll be back to pick you up tonight." She nodded. "_Adieu_, San dear, Zoro darling!" and with that he twirled out of the apartment.

"**Why did you-**" Sanji started, but Zoro cut him off.

"Don't be so cranky in front of the kid." April just stared at them both uninterested, chewing on another cracker.

Sanji caught himself, calmed down and sipped his coffee. "Zoro, my most lovely and bestest friend, why on earth would you sign us up for babysitting this lovely young lady when you hate children in all shapes and sizes?"

"I don't hate kids, if I did I wouldn't teach them anything and I most certainly wouldn't hang out with Luffy." He said. "Besides, _I _can't babysit anyone."

"S'cuse me?"

"_I_ have to work today. So as much as I would love to spend all day catering to April here's every whim, I can't." he smirked. Sanji pointed his death glare at him.

"**You…**"

"Relax, I don't have to leave until ten, so you can get some slee-" Sanji immediately passed out on the counter. April looked on as if it was the most common thing in the world to do. Zoro chuckled before picking him up and tossing him back onto the couch. "So, April," he said, turning to the girl, "what do you want for breakfast?"

"Eggs."

"Uh, don't do eggs."

"Bacon."

"Don't do bacon either." April just stared at him. "How about toast and cereal?"

"Kay."

* * *

Sanji woke up to find April sitting on the coffee table staring at him. He freaked for a moment before he remembered who she was and why she was in his apartment. The smell of burnt toast in the air indicated that Zoro had attempted to make breakfast. He glanced at his watch, which read 10:30, indicating that it was just him and Miss Goldenweek. He glanced up at her.

"I'm bored." She said. Sanji blinked.

"Um…what do you want to do then?" She shrugged. His stomach grumbled. "Well, I'm hungry, so why don't I make us some lunch?" She nodded. He got up and headed over to the kitchen. She followed and sat in the same stool she was sitting in that morning, taking out a sketchbook and some pencils. "What do you want to eat?" Sanji asked.

"Sandwiches."

"What kind?"

"Grilled cheese." Sanji sighed at the lack of challenge but took out the ingredients and started preparing anyway. April started drawing. When the sandwiches were done, Sanji put them on a plate and added some extravagantly fried potatoes as a side dish. April looked up from her drawing, grabbed her plate and started eating. Sanji took his plate sat down across from her.

"What were you drawing?" he asked. She ripped out the sketch and handed it to him. He picked it up and looked at it; it was a very well done sketch of him cooking them lunch.

"You can keep it if you want to." She said, still eating.

"Thank you very much, Miss Goldenweek." He said putting the sketch aside. "Do you like to draw?"

"I guess. Painting's better though."

"You like art then?" She nodded. "Then why don't we go to an art museum after lunch?"

"Kay."

"I'm going to need to get dressed first though." He was still wearing the red shirt and black tie he wore to work the previous night. He finished lunch and went into his room to change into a pink shirt with a blue tie and new black slacks. April was turned facing his bedroom door, drawing again. "What are you drawing now?" She turned her pad around to reveal a very detailed sketch of Luffy laughing while holding Fluffy. "You met Luffy?"

She nodded. "The other day. Dad doesn't like Luffy that much though. Doesn't like you either."

Sanji blinked. "Have I met your father?"

She nodded. "Galdino."

Sanji remembered him now. Pompous idiot who insisted that Sanji didn't know what a good cup of tea was. Sanji had to kick his ass in order to get him to shut up. Apparently he had met Luffy before and after causing some trouble Luffy had kicked his ass then too. Sanji blushed.

"S'okay. I don't judge." April said noticing his blush.

"Yeah…well…we better get going."

* * *

They arrived at the museum. Sanji paid for his entry fee, but April got in for free being underage. They wandered around the museum for a bit, and April found it to be moderately interesting. They found themselves in a Greek sculpture room when Sanji spotted a familiar backside.

"ROBIN!!!" Sanji shouted. Robin turned around, smiled and walked over. "Robin my love, what brings you here on this fine day?"

Robin chuckled. "I'm the museum curator. It's my job to be here."

"I thought that was only at the history museum."

"Usually, but since the art museum curator called in sick today and both museums are owned by the same person, I'm filling in here today."

"But then who's watching the history museum?" Sanji felt someone tugging on his shirt sleeve and looked down. "April, what's up?"

"I wanna paint." Sanji looked at Robin.

"I'm sorry dear, put I can't allow you to paint the sculptures."

"Not the sculptures, the people."

"Oh, well then that's fine. Just don't get any of the art in your portrait. Copyright laws and all that. Okay?"

April nodded, walked over to a bench and pulled out her painting supplies. Sanji and Robin watched her for a moment before Robin said, "She's cute. Is she your new girlfriend?"

"What? Miss Robin, I may be slightly on the perverted side, but I'm not a-"

Robin laughed. "Relax Mr. Cook, I was just teasing. I know who she is. I've worked with Galdino in the past."

"Oh. So how's Franky doing?"

They fell into a comfortable conversation, completely oblivious to what April was painting and the pandemonium it was starting to cause.

Robin looked up from there discussion and noticed bickering couples, people rolling on the floor laughing, people sitting in corners crying, and small group gathered in the center of the room having what appeared to be a picnic. Robin hid her face in her hands. Sanji glanced around the room too. "What…"

"Didn't Bentham warn you about this?" Sanji shook her head. "It completely slipped my mind; April has mastered a type of hypnosis technique using colors. Since she's still so young I doubt she has complete control over it but…" Sanji looked at a particularly heated fight between a couple a few feet to his left.

"April caused this?"

"Yes…"

They both got up and made their way over to where April was seated, calmly painting. "What are you painting April?"

"People."

Sanji looked at the painting. Sure enough, she was painting the people around them, color coded by where they were standing in the room. The bickering couple that Sanji noticed was painted in black, the people in the corners were blue, the people spread out laughing were yellow, and the small group of people in the middle was green. Sanji also noticed that she had started to paint him and Robin where they were talking before. Robin was colored yellow-green while Sanji was being painted with a rainbow of colors. While looking at the painting, Sanji suddenly felt an urge to become a pirate and go look for an ocean that he had heard stories about when he was a kid, but pushed it aside.

"Robin, will the effect wear off after a while?"

"Yes, these behaviors should go away as soon as whatever is influencing them is removed from sight." Sanji sighed.

"C'mon April, it's time to go. Pack up your stuff."

"But, I'm having fun." She said, still entranced with her painting.

"I know. C'mon, you can finish it at home."

"Kay." She stopped painting and packed up her things.

"Sorry for all of the trouble, Miss Robin."

"It's okay Mr. Cook. No permanent harm done." April tugged on Sanji's sleeve again.

"Ready?" She nodded. They left.

* * *

Zoro came back from work at around five to find Usopp rolling on the floor laughing while Sanji cooked dinner and April sat at the counter, staring at him while eating another cracker. Zoro raised an eyebrow questioningly so April showed him her painting of Usopp, done in yellow. Zoro just nodded and sat done besides her.

"Hello honey. How was work?" Sanji asked.

"Wonderful darling, you know how much I love kids." He sighed. "It'd be nice if my wife could put food on the table as soon as I walked through the door, I mean since you're home all day and all." Sanji kicked him upside the head. April stared for a bit before starting another painting, using blue, green, and a whole lot of yellow.

Usopp got over his laughing fit and seated himself across from Zoro. The two began discussing this and that while April painted and Sanji cooked. When dinner was done, Sanji put the food on five plates and handed them out.

"Thanks." Zoro said before he realized exactly what came out of his mouth. Sanji and Usopp just stared at him.

"Zoro are you feeling okay? You never thank Sanji for feeding you." Usopp asked, concerned.

"No…I don't know what came over me…" he glanced down at what April was painting. It was a picture of him sitting at the counter while Sanji cooked done in all yellow-green. "Yellow-green is for friendship huh?" Zoro asked. April nodded before putting everything away and starting on her dinner.

"If you knew about her hypnotizing ability, you could have warned me y'know." Sanji said, sitting down.

Zoro shrugged. "It was more fun watching you figure it out for yourself."

"You weren't home all day, you didn't see anything."

"Was still amusing imagining it." Sanji tossed his napkin at Zoro's head.

After dinner they five of them gathered in the living room area and decided to play Pictionary. After the first round where the Usopp/April team completely destroyed the Sanji/Zoro team, it was agreed (rather forcefully) that the people with artistic talent shouldn't be paired together, so they changed the teams to Usopp/Zoro and April/Sanji. They continued with these teams until a sharp knock interrupted their game. Sanji got up to answer the door and immediately regretted it when Bon Clay hug-tackled him.

"San dear! I missed you, how are you?!"

"Get…off…can't…breathe…"

"Stop joooooking around! Oh, you really can't breathe." Bon Clay let go of Sanji after he realized his face was blue, but still stayed straddled over him. "Zoro darling! And little Uso's here too! How are you doing?"

"I'm not that little…" Usopp muttered.

"We're good Bon, how was your meeting?"

"Uhg, it was horrible. That Zero dear is such an unreasonable man, don't you know."

"You don't say." Sanji commented, still trapped under Bon Clay. "Um, Bon, could you like, get off?"

"Why would I want to do that?" Sanji kicked him in the gut, sending up where the ceiling broke his rising. Sanji rolled away before Bon Clay could fall back down on top of him again. "Oh poo, San dear, you're no fun." Sanji grumbled something unintelligible.

Bon Clay sighed and stood up. "Well, we best be off then. C'mon April darling, say good-bye to your new friends and let us be off!"

"Bye Usopp. Bye Zoro." She stood, grabbed her backpack, and walked over to where Sanji was still sitting on the ground. "Bye Sanji." She gave him a hug and kissed his cheek before walking over to Bon Clay was.

"_Adieu mon amis_!" With that he twirled out of the still open door while April followed him. The door then shut as if it had its own will.

"Aw, look at that Sanji. You finally found yourself a girlfriend." Zoro said smiling.

Sanji blushed. "Shut up!"

Usopp snickered. "Y'know, perversion is just one step towards-" Sanji kicked his head.

"I said shut up! I'm not a pedophile! Or a pervert!"

"Sheesh, you lie worse than me." Usopp said, still grinning. Sanji kicked him again.

"Knock it off, you can't change who you are." The next kick was directed at Zoro. He managed to dodge it though.

Zoro and Usopp had a few more laughs at Sanji's expense while cleaning up the mess from the game. Usopp conveniently had to leave before they started cleaning the kitchen, claiming he had work in the morning. The two of them let him go though, considering it was probably the truth but he just chose to reveal it now, a very clever form of lying in their opinion.

While cleaning up, Zoro came across the sketch of Sanji that April had drawn that morning. Sanji snatched it back before he could start teasing him again.

"Relax; she made one of me two." He said, pulling out a sketch of him sitting at the counter. He compared the two. "Yours is better though. I think little April has a crush."

Sanji blushed. "Well, between me and you, I'd rather crush on me too." Zoro punched him in the arm.

* * *

**For those of you who don't understand a word of French, _Adieu _means 'goodbye' and _mon ami_ means 'my friend.'**


	9. Miss Monday

**What? What? It's still Monday. I have like, 30 minutes until Monday ends. I'm on , I had some writing block issues so it's a bit shorter and it didn't come out so good. I'm very sorry.  
**

**This is Miss Monday as requested by Krentenbol. Next up is, Tashigi right? Sweet. :)**

**Reviews:**

**dandy wondrous: **Thanks. I like her too. She's probably my favorite Baroque Works member. Well, except Bon Clay...she's definitely my favorite to write though.

**ShaolinQueen: **Thanks. Hm, I don't know. Maybe. We'll see how it all turns out. And as for this date...well I tried. _

**debuzz: **Thank you. Yeah, I like her hypnotizing paint powery thing. I hope this chapter isn't such a big disapointment though.

**And, as always, I don't own One Piece. I'm not that awesome.**

* * *

"I hate you."

Sanji was sitting at the counter wearing blue sweats and a plain white t-shirt, glaring at his roommate who was packing up his work out bag.

"You complain when I don't introduce you to anyone, and when I finally do you complain about that too." Sanji intensified his glare.

"Set up? Dragging me to your gym to meet the female body-building champion of whatever doesn't count as a set up!"

"You were complaining about not being able to actually fight anyone new either. Win-win. Don't see why you're complaining." Sanji planted his foot on his head.

"Problem 1: I don't fight girls."

"Its fine, she barely looks like a girl." Sanji pushed his head forward forcefully.

"Problem 2: _She barely looks like a girl_."

"Yeah, so you can fight her. Like I said, win-win. Get your foot off of my head."

"It doesn't matter what she looks like! She's still a girl and I don't kick girls."

"You don't have to kick her; you just have to spar with her a little." Sanji kicked his head.

"That's not how my chivalry works dumbass! I can't just go back on my ideals just because you say it's alright!"

"Well, wouldn't standing her up also go against your messed up chivalry? Did you ever think about that?" Sanji looked taken aback and turned his gaze to the floor. Zoro turned to face him. "What if she wants to fight you? Just for fun and all that. Did that ever cross your dumb blonde mind?"

"I'm not a dumb blonde." Sanji muttered.

"Then stop acting like one. If you stop and think about it, this actually fits your chivalry to a tee."

"I don't want to hurt her…"

Zoro laughed. "Trust me, she's tougher than me in that sense; there's no way a pansy like you could lay a scratch on her." Sanji's glare returned as he pointed it at Zoro.

"Is that a challenge?"

"Maybe it is. What are you going to do about it?" Zoro smirked.

"Nothing; I don't hurt girls." He spun the stool so it was facing the other way.

"Urg! Why do you have to be so frustrating?" Zoro kept staring at Sanji, who was twiddling his foot while doing his very best to ignore his roommate. Zoro sighed. "Well, you're going, whether by your own will or not." And with that, he grabbed Sanji's ankle and proceeded to drag him to the door.

"Ack! Dumbass! I'm attached to that! Let go!" He did, but put his foot on his chest to prevent him from getting up.

"If you can't stand her up, that means you have to go right?" Sanji looked away. "And if she wants to actually spar with you, then you can't disappoint her, right?" Sanji muttered something incoherent. "Therefore, you can leave this little situation with your honor intact if you just look at it the right way."

Sanji sighed. "You're going to make me do this no matter what, aren't you?"

"Yup."

Sanji sighed, and then quickly twisted over to the right to bring up his left leg and knock Zoro off of him. "For the record, I could have done that at any time."

"Yeah…" Zoro said, completely winded.

"Well come on, let's go. I wouldn't want to stand up my date now would I?"

* * *

They arrived at the gym in a timely manner; however one quick look around told them that Miss Monday hadn't shown up yet.

"Well, I guess she's not here today, let's go." Sanji did a 180 and made a bolt for the door. Zoro grabbed the back of his shirt.

"Whoa, where do you think you're going? She'll be here eventually, don't worry your pretty little self about it." Sanjij slapped his and away and glared at him.

"Have I mentioned that I hate you?"

"Not this hour I don't think."

"Well, I hate you." They made their way to the locker room to drop off their stuff before heading out to where the mats for sparring were set up. Zoro was delighted to see that Miss Monday had showed up at this time; Sanji was slightly less thrilled.

"Oh, Zoro! There you are. And this must be Sanji. It's nice to meet you." Miss Monday said.

"It's nice to meet you to. You're like a lovely flower amidst this desolate plain of death and testosterone." Sanji replied, flirt mode in full swing. Zoro smacked his forehead.

"Uh, thanks." She replied. "Zoro, Bones has been looking for you…"

"Yeah, I know. Where is he?" Miss Monday pointed vaguely towards the other side of the gym. Zoro gave a quick wave and wandered off in search of his opponent.

Sanji took the opportunity to give Miss Monday a one over. She had short pink hair, which complemented her dark skin quite nicely, tied into two pigtails. She was wearing a red t-shirt with red and white checkered pants, both of which showed of an imposing array of muscles that even Zoro would be envious of. All in all a fairly impressive women, and if she needed a sparring partner, well then Sanji, being the gentlemen that he was, was more than happy to comply. Right? Yeah, he could do this…maybe.

"So, are you ready?" Miss Monday asked him after they had set up on the mat.

"My dear, I am ready whenever you are." They started circling each other.

"Zoro says that I should go easy on you otherwise you'll break like a twig." She said while she launched a grab attempt towards Sanji's midsection. He quickly back flipped to dodge and landed gracefully a safe distance away. He smirked.

"I'm not that easily broken, my dear." He lunged and launched a kick slightly to the left of her head, which she easily dodged and attempted a follow up by ramming into his side. He quickly found his footing and did a back bend to dodge.

"Hmph. Well aren't you Mr. Agile."

"All of the power in the world will never do you any good if you can't hit your opponent." He dodged a punched aimed at his face by launching himself into a handstand. "At least that's what I think."

They continued in this manner for some time, however as time went on it became blatantly obvious that Sanji wasn't going to launch a real attack.

"Ya gonna dodge all day Twinkle Toes?" She had taken to calling him that after the first twenty minutes. Sanji found it endearing.

"Whatever works, my dear." Sanji had also quickly discovered that his stamina could very easily outlast hers. This was very lucky for him, since he had no real intention of attacking in the first place. Sure enough, her moves had slowed down significantly. However, Sanji knew it was very, very hard to win a fight without landing a single hit, and while Miss Monday had gotten a few fierce shots at his ribs, he had yet to land a blow. He planned to keep it that way too.

Dodge left, dodge right, jump, duck, jump. Despite the definite decrease in her speed, Sanji was still having trouble finding an opportune moment to present itself. He needed to find a way to end this, now.

As if some kind of horrible answer to his prayers, the earth underneath them started shaking. Miss Monday and Sanji looked up, down, all around for a source of the rumbling. The last thing Sanji remembered was looking around to see what the hell Zoro was up to before he was knocked unconscious.

* * *

"Hey, Love-cook. Wake up." Sanji felt someone shaking his shoulder.

"Mermhasphulfulfle." Not the most eloquent thing for him to say, but he felt it got his point across.

"Stop it. Wake up." More shaking. Can't they just let him sleep?

"Sanji! Wake up! Someone call a doctor, quick!" A different voice this time.

"Chopper, isn't that why you're here?"

"Oh yeah." Sanji was utterly confused and decided that this would be a good time to open his eyes.

"Wut 'appened?"

"SANJI!" Chopper jumped on him and hug tackled him. "I'm so glad you're not dead."

"Dead? What's going on?" Sanji questioned while returning the hug.

"Water mane burst in the basement or something along those lines. The entire place collapsed." Zoro was seated next to him wearing an emotion on his face that definitely _wasn't_ relief. "You were knocked out by some falling ceiling tiles and Miss Monday had to carry you out."

"Is she okay? Did she make it out?"

"No, she carried you out but was left in the building." Zoro rolled his eyes.

"Zoro, be nice. He has a concussion."Chopper reprimanded in his best doctor voice. Zoro backed off.

"Ug, my head." Sanji complained putting said body part in his hands.

"Gah! Are you alright?" Chopper jumped up and grabbed a small pen light from somewhere and flashed it in Sanji's eyes. "Well, you're pupils aren't dilated. How are you feeling? Sick, tired, dizzy?"

"Little of both."

"There were three options…" said Zoro.

"Maybe we should take him to the hospital after all…"

"No, I'm fine. I just need rest, I think."

"Maybe you should trust the doctor's opinion on this, considering your complete lack of medical knowledge." Zoro got a kick in the head.

"I think I know my own limits."

"You two are always like this." Chopper started off on his tangent. "You think you're some kind of super powered beings out of some manga series, but you're just regular humans with regular human weaknesses. You both push yourselves two much!"

"Hey, I'm perfectly alright."

"You have a giant gash on your arm."

"And yet, I'm perfectly alright." Chopper glared.

"Well, Chopper, you're not a medical genius for nothing," ("S-stupid, you're praise means nothing to me!") "Do you think I should go to the hospital?"

Chopper held up three fingers in front of his face. "How many fingers do you see?"

"If you'd stop moving them I'd be able to count…"

"Yes, it is my professional opinion that you go to the hospital. Zoro should go with you and get some real stitches."

"Whatever you did is-" Chopper gave him his best doctor glare "fine, hospital it is."

"Do we have to ride in the ambulance?" Sanji asked, rubbing his temples with the heels of his hand, "those things always give me a headache."

"No, Zoro should be good to drive."

Zoro helped him up and the three of them got into the car. Sanji fell asleep three times on the drive there, only to be awoken by a panicking Chopper. When they got to the hospital, Chopper lead them into an examine room where he gave Sanji some pills and let him fall asleep as he started putting stitches into Zoro's arm.

* * *

"Love-cook, we're home." Sanji felt something gently nudging his arm.

"No, that's too much soup…" he muttered.

"Maybe I should just slap him awake…"

"Zoro! He has a concussion!" Sanji opened his eyes.

"Oh, are you awake now princess?"

"Shut up…" They all got out of the car. With careful prodding from Zoro and Chopper, Sanji managed to make it up to their apartment and collapse on the couch.

"Y'know, one of these days I'd like to go on a date where I didn't wind up in the hospital."

"Or jail." Added Zoro. Chopper had seated himself at the kitchen counter and Zoro was pulling leftovers out of the fridge.

"Yeah. Why can't I have normal dates?"

"Cause you're a freak and destined to be alone for the rest of your life." Sanji chucked a shoe at his head. Somehow it hit him. Chopper just laughed.


	10. Tashigi

**HA! It's finally done! I had to do a rewrite because for some reason the first one ended up with Zoro and Sanji making out on the beach...yeah, I fixed it and this version's better. **

**This is Tashigi as requested by Krentenbol. Next up is...Vivi? Maybe? I'll have to check.**

**Enjoy!  
**

**Reviews:**

**ReadR: **Yeah, that's happened to me too, of course I'm also to lazy to type out my penname, so I just leave it anyonomous. Yes. Yes it is. I'm sure I can think of worse though...poor Sanji. :D

**ShaolinQueen: **Thanks! That he does, even if he'll never admit it. ;p I'm glad you found it so funny. I hope this one is, well, good too.

**dandy wonderous: **Yes! Power to the blondes! Wait, I'm not blonde...poo. Anyway, thank you very much! I hope this satisfies your tastes.

**debuzz: **Yeah, Zoro's comebacks are quite awesome, if I do say so myself...considering I wrote them...anyway, thank you very much!

**kingston: **Thank you! Here's the next chapter, and always happy to add Zosan...even if it's just random friendship.

**Splatter Fall: **Oh no! But you're back now and you also get this brand-new chapter. It actaully wasn't all that difficult; I had the idea for what Sanji would do with her since, like, Bonney. This one too actually. Little girls go on random 'dates' with daddy all the time, or at least they used to. People might scream 'child abuse!' now maybe. Anyway...yeah, emo Sanji is no fun. I should do something about that...maybe ;p. Thank you very much! And may I just add, that is an adorable icon.

**Anyway, I don't own One Piece, so, yeah, no money for me.**

* * *

"Oh, so you're going out tonight?" Zoro asked.

Sanji froze and stopped what he was currently doing, which happened to be buttoning up his blood-red shirt. "Y-yeah." He finally answered, then continued buttoning his shirt and started tying his tie.

"Where you going?" Zoro leaned against the doorframe to his room.

Sanji faltered again. "N-nowhere in particular…"

Zoro raised an eyebrow. "What's up with you?"

Sanji turned to face him. "Nothing's wrong with me! God, what's with the interrogation anyway?! Why do you need to know everything single thing about my life?! It's not like you're my mom! Leave me alone!" Zoro blinked.

"Ya done? Did you get it all out?"

"I think so."

"Good, now will you tell me why you're acting like a teenage girl?"

"I am _not_." Sanji pouted. His roommate just raised a questioning eyebrow, while he smacked his forehead. "Okay, maybe I am. But the point stands: it's none of your business."

"What's her name?"

"Th-that's really none of your business!"

"So I know her?"

"Not all that surprising; you know _everyone_, you know."

"Why won't you just tell me?"

"Why do you _care_?"

"I only care because you seem to care so much. Just tell me." Sanji turned around stubbornly to finish tying his tie. "I mean, it's not like you'll be going out with _Tash_ or anything like that." Sanji froze again.

"…"

"…Don't tell me…"

"…" Sanji turned around, staring at a very interesting spot on the floor.

"…You…and Tash…"

"…" Sanji decided that there was a more interesting spot on the ceiling.

"…worst friend ever."

Sanji finally looked the green-haired man in the eyes. "Excuse me?"

"There's definitely some man law stating that you can't bang your best friend's girl."

"I am not going to 'bang' her; I'm simply taking her out. Besides, you guys are off right now, so it's not like she's yours."

"It's an on-again/off-again thing, implying that it will be on-again in the future if it is currently off now." Zoro pushed himself off of the doorframe. "Besides, there's also a man law stating that you can't ask out your best friend's ex. That's just not cool."

"…" Sanji noticed a truly fascinating spot on the wall to the right of him.

Zoro smacked his forehead. "…don't tell me…she asked _you_?" Yes, that spot on the wall was mighty interesting. Zoro growled.

"Oh come on. You know I can't say 'no' when-"

"I know, I know! Just…maybe you could show a _little_ consideration for my feelings huh?"

"I tried to show consideration for your feelings!"

"By what, not telling me?!"

Sanji shrugged at that. "Ignorance is bliss." Zoro growled again. Sanji held his hands up defensively in front of him. "Aren't you overlooking the positives here?"

"What _positives_? Crossing Tash off of your little perverted list is _not_ very beneficial in my book!"

"No, it's like…I could put in a good word for you. Like a wingman or something. Help you guys get back on a little faster."

"Not in that shirt!"

Sanji looked down at the tight-fitting red shirt that did nothing but show off the chef's amazing upper body and perfectly accented his…everything really. "What's wrong with this shirt?"

"You're too damn hot! I'd consider doing you in that shirt!"

"Well, thank you for the disturbing mental image, but it's my favorite shirt. I'm not going to change just because-"

"I refuse to consent to this date unless you change your shirt." Sanji just stared at him.

"You're kidding right? You're not my mom. No, better yet, you're not _her_ jealous father."

"Doesn't matter. There's a man law somewhere-"

"No, enough of your man laws. You're just being a jealous brat. Who'd of thought that the great Zoro Roronoa would fall to such a pathetic emotion?" He pushed passed Zoro and made his way to the front door. Zoro stood fuming for a moment before gathering his senses and exiting the room right behind his treacherous roommate.

"You can't take my car."

"Wasn't planning on it."

"Where are you going then?"

"Yeah, like I'd tell you in this state. You'd probably end up stalking us. Don't wait up." He said, and left the apartment winking.

Zoro just stared at the door for a bit before pulling out his cell phone. "Hey, Usopp. How fast can you get over here…?"

* * *

Sanji waltzed up to Tashigi's place, humming a little tune. He knocked on the door, and heard a crash on the other side before Tashigi came opened the door and immediately tripped into Sanji's arms.

"Well, now, don't you think you're rushing things a bit, Miss Tashigi?"

"S-sorry Sanji." She straightened herself out and pulled her glasses out of her pocket. When she put them on and got a good look at Sanji, she added, "That's a nice shirt, but I thought you said to dress casual…" She looked down at her pink polka-dotted shirt and blue jeans.

He looked over his outfit; along with the infamous red shirt, he was also wearing his standard black slacks and black shoes. "This is casual for me, actually." He shook his head. "Anyway, should we get going?"

"Yeah, thanks for doing this by the way. I need a break from all of the Zoro's at work…"

"Excuse me?"

"Huh? I just said I needed a break from all of the guys at work. What's so hard to understand?"

"…You said 'Zoro's'."

"Pardon?"

"You said, 'I need a break from all the _Zoro's_ at work."

"Why would I say that? That makes no Zoro."

"You just…never mind." He offered her his hand. "Shall we be off, my lady?"

She took the offered hand and let Sanji lead her towards the beach.

* * *

"Gah! He's taking her to the beach! In a red shirt!"

"That doesn't necessarily mean anything."

"Zoro, I'm hungry. You said there'd be food. And Fluffy's getting restless..."

Zoro, Usopp, Luffy, and Fluffy were currently sitting in Zoro's car a good half-block away from Tashigi's house. Zoro in the driver's seat with Usopp as his passenger with binoculars. Luffy and Fluffy were taking up the backseats.

"Red shirt? Romantic walk on the beach under the moonlight? Red shirt!? That ero-cook has some kind of ulterior motive."

"You're just being paranoid. Can't you give him the benefit of the doubt?"

"Never. Ow! Luffy! Can't you control that thing?" Fluffy had nipped Zoro's neck and a bruise was starting to form.

"But Zoooroooo, we're hungry…"

"Eat the alligator if you're so damn hungry!"

"Zoro!" Luffy gasped, "The alligator is our friend! I'd rather have him as my friend than eat him in my stew!"

"They're moving out of sight." Usopp butted in. "Should we follow them Captain Stalker-Zoro?"

"Yeah…and don't call me that!"

* * *

It was lucky Tashigi only lived a block away from the boardwalk, otherwise Sanji would have had to think of something else, but this way everything was practically set in motion for him. Well, everything except his companions ranting.

"And I love Captain Smoker to death and all that-not in that way mind you-but I just wish that sometimes he would treat me as an equal instead of just another women on the force, you know?"

"Yes, I know exactly what you're talking about."

"I know! It's crazy!" She looked around. "Oh, when did we get to the boardwalk?"

"Just now, my dear. May I suggest however that, since you asked me out so you could get away from work, that maybe if you didn't talk about it so much you might be able to relax better?"

"Oh! I'm sorry Sanji! You must have been bored out of your mind listening to me go on."

"On the contrary, I find every word that has fallen from your luscious lips to be of the upmost interest. I am merely worried about your current state of relaxation." He smiled at her and helped her up to the boardwalk, gesturing at all of the different food stands that littered the area. "Take your pick, my dear. It's all on me; whatever you want."

"Sanji, I couldn't possibly-"

"No, I insist." Tashigi shyly pointed at some cotton candy which Sanji immediately got her.

* * *

"He's buying her cotton candy now! How can you possibly say he's not trying to get into her pants?"

"Um, it's just a snack. Besides, Sanji's not like that; you're distorting his character."

"Yohoho! What seems to be going on here?" Zoro and Usopp jumped a mile.

"Oh, Brooke! Fancy meeting you here." Luffy greeted. "Listen, Zoro said he'd buy us food, but he hasn't yet? Help a friend out, please?"

"Of course, I don't mind buying you and Fluffy a small snack. But _only_ a small snack; you completely wiped me out last time."

"Perfect," Zoro said, "you take Luffy and the alligator and go get some food."

"You're not coming with us?"

"Uh, Usopp and I have some-"

"We're stalking Sanji and Tashigi." Usopp said bluntly. Zoro punched his head.

"Hm? Well it does seem that Sanji is here with the lovely police Sergeant. But you and her…"

"Yeah, well, apparently since it's not on now, any perverted chef can just sweep her off her feet or something." Brooke put a comforting hand on Zoro's shoulder.

"Cheer up Zoro. It only gets worse from here."

"Thanks Brooke. That didn't help at all." He shrugged him off. "Just take Luffy and feed his alligator."

"Yeah, Brooke. I want meat!" Fluffy opened his mouth as if in agreement.

"Yohoho, well then, let us be off. Toodles!"

Zoro grumbled and grabbed the binoculars from Usopp.

* * *

Tashigi and Sanji had wandered onto the beach where they found a bonfire going on and decided to check it out. Alcohol was being served, but Sanji, knowing that for some reason he can't hold his liquor very well, declined. Tashigi decided to have some, but not enough to get her completely wasted, just a bit tipsy. Of course, being a bit tipsy when she's completely sober, Tashigi was not the most graceful person when tipsy.

"Oof. Sorry Sanji, the ground just sort of tipped that way…again." She remarked after Sanji caught her for the fiftieth time that night.

"Think nothing of it, but perhaps you would consider sitting down?" Tashigi let him lead her over to a section of the beach that was far away enough from the crowd so that they wouldn't be too disturbed yet still close enough to the bonfire to feel its warmth.

"Thanks Sanji. Zoro would never-"

"HEY SANJI!" Luffy ran over and tackled Sanji to the ground. Brooke was right behind him, carrying Fluffy.

"Luffy? Brooke? What are you doing here?"

"Zoro promised us food, but he never delivered. We ran into Brooke who agreed to feed us. Then these guys came up to us with ribs and stuff and said they got it here so we decided to come here too. Hey Tashigi."

"Hello Luffy. It's nice to see you again. You too Brooke."

"It's nice to see you too. I was wondering though, what color panties are you-" Sanji kicked him upside the head.

"I could have taken him…" Tashigi muttered. "Wait, Zoro? What's Zoro doing here?"

"Eh? Z-zoro's not here. Who said anything about that?" Luffy said, looking shifty.

"That shitty marimo bastard. He followed me didn't he?"

"N-no. Technically that was Usopp…not that either of them are here right now, that is…"

Sanji pulled out his phone and dialed a number. Some distance away he heard _Sexy Back_ playing.

* * *

"Look! He's leading her away from everyone else! Clearly he's-"

"Trying to molest or rape or kill her. Or maybe he's just going to make sure she doesn't kill herself? She does seem a bit tipsy."

"Che. If he really knew what he was doing, he wouldn't have let her get that drunk."

"She's not really drunk, just a bit tipsy."

"She's tripping all over the place! She's toasted."

"If you add in the fact that she trips all over the place when she's perfectly fine, this is the expected result when you combine that with alcohol."

"He shouldn't have let her have any alcohol in the first place!"

"She's a big girl Zoro; she can make her own decisions. Besides, you would have let her drink herself silly if you were with her right now."

"_I_ don't have some crazy ulterior motives!"

"No, she was completely aware that you wanted to get into her pants wasn't she?" Zoro punched him in the head. "Stop doing that!"

"Stop saying stupid things! Wait, is that Luffy? What's he doing here?! Brooke was supposed to be watching him!"

"Lemme see." Usopp took the binoculars. "Brooke's there too. The meat from the BBQ probably attracted him like the moths to this giant flame here. Ouch."

"What?"

"Brooke just got kicked in the head. How Sanji managed to pull that off when Brooke is like 8'7" and he's only 5'8" _and_ from the ground with Luffy on top of him is a mystery to me."

"Yeah, more about the stupid cook's physics defying flexibility later. What's going on?" He snatched the binoculars back. "Funny, love-cook seems pissed. Luffy probably tried to interrupt his make-out session." He heard _Sexy Back_ playing from somewhere close by.

"Zoro, isn't that your phone?"

"Hm?"

"Your phone's ringing."

"No, I don't have a _Sexy Back_ ringtone."

"Well, it's coming from your pants, so…"

Zoro put down the binoculars and pulled out his phone. Sure enough, it was the one ringing. The caller ID said 'Mr. Prince.' Zoro answered.

"Don't change my contacts jackass."

"Don't just randomly leave your phone places." Sanji said from the other end. "And on that note, don't randomly stalk people."

"It's _not_ random, and it's _not_ stalking."

"Well, whatever you're choosing to call it, it's creepy and you're paranoid."

"I am _not_ paranoid, I'm merely taking precautions."

"Against what? It's not like I'm a rapist or something."

"…"

"You though I was going to rape her weren't you?"

"Why else would you wear that shirt?"

"If she consents, it's not rape."

"You're influencing her. It's like if you got her drunk but worse."

"No it's not. She's free to make her own choices. And this is completely irrelevant 'cause that's not my intention anyway."

"Then why are you doing this? You know how I feel about her!"

"No not really. You mind telling me?"

"Don't be an ass you know you do."

"Um, Zoro…" Usopp poked his shoulder.

"Not now Usopp."

"No," Sanji said, "I'm a bit confused on the matter."

"What's there to be confused about? You know I'm crazy about her or else I would waste my time!"

"So, you like her?"

"What are you deaf? Yes, I like her! Madly in like with her! So in like with her some people could confuse it for love!"

"…"

"…"

"…"

"I'm on speaker phone, aren't I?"

* * *

When Sanji put Zoro on speaker, Tashigi wanted to protest, she wasn't in the mood for talking to him right now, but Sanji shushed her with a finger to his lips. When Zoro had burst out into what can only be described as a confession, Tashigi started some hardcore blushing. She didn't know whether to run up to the swordsman and smack him until he bled or kiss him until he passed out. Sanji, apparently reading her mind, pointed her in the right direction.

Sanji watched her storm over to where Zoro and Usopp where, tripping on the way there but Zoro caught her, only to be pushed off again. Usopp had enough sense to hightail it over to where Brooke, Luffy, and Sanji were.

"So, how's your big _plan_ working out, Mr. Prince?"

"Excellent, if I do say so myself, Sogeking."

"I want a codename too!" Luffy said. "I was an essential part of the plan!"

"Yohoho! So you had this all planned out Sanji?"

"Of course. He's been moping around for weeks. Started getting on my nerves really. So when Tashigi asked me out, I decided it was the perfect time to do something about it."

"Well, it looks like she's beating the crap out of him right now." Observed Usopp. "Plan failure?"

"Wait for it…" Sure enough, a few seconds later, she started kissing him. "Plan success." High fives were had by all.

"But, it's a tad strange, Sanji," Brooke added, "for you to just let her go. She probably would have given you a chance, you know."

Sanji lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. He exhaled and watched the smoke circle upward. "Mr. Prince wants to give all of the world's ladies what they want, even if they don't know exactly what they want themselves."

"Mr. Prince: Defender of truth, justice, and the hearts of young maidens everywhere." Usopp stated. "I kind of like it. You could write a manga about it or something."

"No one would buy it."

"Yeah, that's a boring topic." Chimed in Luffy. "People really want to read about pirates and their many ocean adventures. I'd buy that manga."

"I would too, actually." Sanji added.

"Yohoho! As would I."

"Me too, now that you mention it."

* * *

"You could have at least _told_ me what you were planning."

"Of course not. That would have ruined the entire plan!"

After walking Tashigi home, Usopp, Luffy, and Fluffy decided to bum a ride off of Brooke, leaving Sanji to explain the genius of his plan to Zoro by himself on the car ride home. They were back in their apartment now.

"You could at least say, 'Thank you Mr. Prince, I will never doubt your judgment on such matters of the heart ever again, for clearly I am a lowly marimo being not worthy of even breathing the same air as you, let alone partaking in your infinite knowledge.'"

"No need to inflate your ego, it wasn't _that_ brilliant of a plan."

"Just because you can't plan past what you're going to eat for _breakfast_ the next day doesn't mean you should scoff at the brilliance of others."

"Psh. Whatever. I still don't see why you had to wear that shirt though."

Sanji looked down at the shirt he was still wearing. "I don't get what you have against this shirt. It's a nice shirt."

"Too nice is all I'm saying…you almost screwed up your own plan by wearing that shirt."

"It's just a shirt damnit. If your ego is so low that you think you'd lose to a _shirt-_"

"My ego is not low!"

"Sheesh, why are you going on about your ego? Methinks you're over-compensating perhaps?"

Sanji had about a half second warning before Zoro attacked.


	11. Vivi

**Sorry this is a bit...later than usually. I didn't really like what was going on so in my boredom I wrote the first scene just to write morning!Sanji again and it ended up going in a completely different direction then it was supposed to. So yeah, if it gets a bit weird...I'm sorry.**

**For those of you who were asking for the 'original' ending to Tashigi's chapter, I posted it in _The Sun, the Sea, and the Stawhats_ incase you haven't seen it yet.**

**And this is Vivi as requested by Krentenbol. Next up is...Kuleha? Really? That's going to be fun, poor Sanji. XD**

**Warning: **Mentions of ViviXKohza

**Reviews:**

**sentimentalreality: **Thank you! I liked that chapter very much too, but I think Miss Goldenweek is still my favorite for some reason.

**ShaolinQueen: **You're not alone in that sentiment. Thank you very much, I wasn't sure if I had gotten what Mr. Prince was doing across very well, but if you got it then I guess I did it right. :P

**kingston: **Aw, well, you can also take solice in the fact that Sanji is still the one living with Zoro at least. ;p

**ohlordies: **Thank you very much! I'm glad you enjoyed it so thourougly.

**dandy wondrous: **Thank you! Yeah me too, I have a thing for Sanji in a red shirt...there's some fanart somewhere ;p.

**Splatter Fall: ***blinks* Agreed. Me too, I wonder if it's the same thing? ;p I know, shame on you Zoro! If he leaves it just laying around then it's just asking for abuse. Yes, but it still worked it's way in ;p. Agreed...again...on both points.

**debuzz: **That's what any writer asks for at any rate, and I totally get it. I'm probably the only person in the fandom who has a problem with Luffy/Nami. Sorry, I should have given you a heads up.

**Lurker: **Well, I have a list, it's in my profile if you want to check it out. I've added Miss Doublefinger though, so don't worry. Thank you very much!

**ReadR: **Yeah, he's super clever like that...when he wants to be. Done and done, in a way. Totally added, and don't worry, I know what you're saying. ;p

**anzuillison183: **You should review every chapter...reviews make me happy. Anyway, I'm glad you enjoyed it and was able to achieve whatever expectations you had, and thank you!

**Krentenbol: **Gah! Thank you very much! I'm glad you're enjoying this so much. :D

**And I don't own One Piece. Wouldn't know what to do with it if I did.**

* * *

Sanji dragged himself out of bed and shuffled to the kitchen area.

"Coffee." He demanded, and found one being shoved under his nose by a green-haired man. He sat down at the counter and took a few sips. When he had woken up out of his daze and gazed around, he noticed Vivi seated next to him.

"Ah! V-vivi! I'm sorry I didn't see you there…good morning." he was still hearing the boxers and tank-top that he had slept in.

"It's okay, Sanji. Good morning." She smiled sweetly at him and took a sip for the mug in her hand.

"Shall I make you breakfast? Or do you prefer burnt toast?"

"I don't _always_ burn the toast." Zoro remarked. Sanji ignored him, took out all of the supplies that he needed, and started making French toast.

"So what brings someone as lovely as you over here so early in the morning?" Sanji inquired.

Vivi twiddled her thumbs on her mug. "Well, Sanji, I actually have a favor to ask…"

"Of me?"

"If you don't mind."

"For someone as beautiful as you? I wouldn't dream of it." He turned to face her. "What's up?"

"Well, my father's company is hosting an event tonight. It's one of those events where it would be…better if I showed up with an escort, if you get what I'm saying." Sanji nodded.

"And Kohza is…" Vivi sighed.

"His father's sick and he can't go. I asked Zoro, but-" she was cut off by both men laughing.

"Ah, sorry Vivi, but fancy gatherings aren't really Zoro's thing." Sanji apologized.

"I know, but still, I thought I should try. So anyway, Sanji…"

"My dearest Vivi, I would be honored to accompany you to such an event." He bowed before turning his attention back to the stove.

"Really? I don't mean to burden you, I mean, I know you're busy with the restaurant…"

"Nonsense today happens to be my day off."

"Well, I don't mean to bother you on your day off…"

"S'not going to work now, Vivi." Zoro interjected. "Once the idiot gets all worked up like this there's no stopping him." A foot hit the back of the head and his forehead banged against the counter. "Ow."

"Rest assured, my sweet Vivi, you're not burdening me in the slightest." He placed a plate of French toast in front of her gently before plopping another in front of his roommate and sitting down with a third of his own. While they ate, Vivi told him the place, time, appropriate dress, and what he should expect later that night.

***

"Well, how does this look?" Sanji asked, doing a small spin. Zoro, who was sitting on the couch watching TV, turned to face his roommate, who was sporting a standard black-and-white tux. Sanji, however, managed to make it look, well, good. Really good.

"You look like crap." He replied. Sanji grinned.

"I still don't know why you didn't want to go, you usually don't pass up the chance for free food." He said as he grabbed Zoro's keys and his jacket.

"You know how I feel about ties. Besides that there are all of those people staring at you, judging you. Plus, I'm pretty sure Kohza's part of some terrorist organization and he'd send some assassin-ninjas after me if he caught me out with Vivi." Sanji kicked his head.

"You're one to talk about judging people."

"Maybe not _terrorist_ per say, but he hangs around some pretty weird guys…just be careful."

"Whatever." Sanji turned and made his way to the door. "Don't wait up mom!" he called, shutting the door before the can that Zoro chucked hit him.

***

Sanji was waiting outside the Rain Dinners for Vivi. She showed up a few minutes later, wearing an elegant pale-blue dress that made her look even more beautiful than Sanji thought possible. Her hair was done up in some kind of fancy bun, revealing dangling earrings that matched the dress that looked like they were made of diamond. She also had on a matching necklace and bracelet. Sanji gaped at her for a few seconds before composing himself, bowing slightly and grabbing her hand before planting a kiss on it.

"Mademoiselle, you are looking too lovely for words tonight." She blushed.

"You're not looking to bad yourself. Shall we go?"

"Of course." He offered his arm, which she took, and they walked inside the establishment.

***

Inside was like a menagerie of people, the different colors of the many exotic outfits creating a unique atmosphere in itself. There was a huge space in the middle of the room set aside for dancing, and while a few people were, the majority was concentrated into small groups throughout the room, talking about matters that weren't of any interest to Sanji, he was sure.

Vivi gently tugged at his arm so he followed her through the crowds of people until she found her family's two guards.

"Chaka, Pell," she addressed them when she got closer, "Can you tell Father that I'm here?" They nodded before returning to survey the crowd of people before them. Vivi then guided Sanji across the room again, before they were interrupted by a man in a green suit wearing a crown.

"Vivi, baby, long time no see." The man said.

"Yes, it's good to see you again too, Mr. Nine." Vivi smiled and nodded. "How have you been?"

"Spectacular." He faced Sanji and gave him a peculiar look. "This that Kohza I've been hearing so much about?" he asked.

"No, unfortunately Kohza couldn't make it tonight." Mr. Nine looked relieved for about half a second before he caught himself and composed his face. "This is my friend, Sanji Blackleg. Sanji, this is Manfred Nine, heir to the Nine Sporting Goods Company." Sanji shook his hand.

"You make the bat things?" Sanji asked. Mr. Nine sighed.

"Yes, we make bats. We do a bit more than that actually, but it's not all that important right now." He turned to face Vivi and started up a conversation about things that really didn't concern Sanji all that much.

As Sanji watched them talking, he noticed Mr. Nine getting closer and closer to Vivi, who he also noticed was getting more and more uncomfortable with the situation. Sanji thought that something needed to be done, and decided that that something should be kicking this Mr. Nine through the nearest wall, so he did so.

As soon as Mr. Nine hit the wall, the band playing struck a particularly loud note, so the whole incident went mostly unnoticed by the large crowd and only attracted the attention of those nearby, who frankly didn't care one way or the other that someone just got sent through a wall.

"Sanji! What was that for?" Vivi stared at him, shocked.

"He was pissing me off. Doesn't look like anyone noticed though." Mr. Nine got up, shook his head and glared at Sanji, who glared back with double the ferocity. He got the message and went to go bother someone else. "Besides, you wanted an excuse for him to go away, even if you would never admit it." He said, turning back to Vivi.

"He was making me a bit uneasy, but that's no reason to kick him through a wall, whether anyone cared or not."

"I'm sorry, Vivi." Vivi sighed.

"It's okay, I guess. Just…go get me some food while I talk to some more people, okay?"

"Yes, my darling Vivi!" He performed a spin and rushed over to the food table.

Even Sanji, who was very hard to please with this kind of thing, was impressed with the spread that they had. Every type of food Sanji would have made for this thing was there, including several that Sanji didn't think to include, but was happily surprised to find. He grabbed two plates and set out trying to find the best combinations for his lovely princess.

"Yohoho! That was quite a little act you pulled over there." Sanji looked up and saw his afro-wielding friend standing next to him. "You were lucky there was some kind of distraction, or you would have gotten in a lot of trouble…" Sanji grinned at him.

"Thanks for that, by the way." Brooke just shrugged. "What are you doing here anyway? You don't usually work these kinds of things."

"Free food, good pay, I'd have to be an idiot to pass it up."

"Well, either way, I'm glad you're here. Vivi is a gem, but with all of these other rich people about…"

Brooke nodded. "Yeah, I understand. It's hard to put on airs when you just don't want to embarrass yourself, but since Vivi invited you, well, if you screwed up here, you'd give her a social stigma as well."

"…I never thought of it that way."

"Yohoho! Ever since Vivi decided to move in with Nami and Miss Nojiko, the upper class world has just been waiting for her to screw up." Brooke shook his head and sighed. "After getting together with Kohza, they've been watching them both very closely, waiting for them to trip up. I'm not surprised he got out of this."

"His father's sick."

"A bit convenient no?" Brooke looked at his watch, "well, breaks over. I've gotta get back on stage, but don't worry Sanji, I'm sure you won't mess this up for her."

"Thanks Brooke."

The musician danced off with one last "Yohoho!" so Sanji made his way back to Vivi and presented her with her food.

"Thanks Sanji." She said, taking the dish from his extended hand. "Everyone," Vivi said, addressing the group of people around her, "this is Sanji Blackleg. He was kind enough to fill in for Kohza for tonight."

"So, Mr. Blackleg," one of the older gentlemen said in a tone that was anything but gentle, "Vivi tells us that you're a chef."

"Yes, that's right. I'm the co-owner and Sous chef at the Baratie."

"Baratie?" one of the older (but still beautiful) ladies inquired. "I've eaten there a few times. It's very good."

"I am very honored that someone as lovely and refined as yourself would say such endearing things about our restaurant."

The evening continued in that manner without Sanji making too much trouble, and aside from that one incident with the wife of a business tycoon ("I swear, I didn't know she was married!") everything was going rather well.

Then the ninja-assassins showed up.

The lights were only out for about a second or two; only long enough for everyone to realize that they were out, but nowhere near long enough for anyone to care, but when Sanji turned to ask Vivi what was wrong, she wasn't there.

"Vivi!" Out of the corner of his eye he saw something dark exiting the room and chased after it without thinking.

The door he exited from led him to a long corridor. Near the end of it he saw a door shut, so naturally he ran to it and opened it to find two men and Jyabura dressed in black, Vivi tied up and thrown over Jyabura's shoulder.

"What the hell are you doing here?!" Sanji and Jyabura asked at the same time.

"Jyabura, do you know him?" The tall one wearing a top hat asked.

"Yeah, he's just some shitty chef."

"Chappapa, he's the one who kicked Jyabura's ass before when Kaku said it was a training accident." The fat one with stitches around his mouth said. Jyabura hit him on the head.

"You idiot! You weren't supposed to tell him that!"

"Well, cook, what are you doing here now?"

"Let Vivi go." Sanji responded.

He smirked and covered his eyes with his hat. "Unfortunately for you, I can't do that. You see, I have my orders…" he looked up only to notice that Sanji had already dealt with the other two and had escaped with Vivi.

"God damnit, you can't find good help these days." He ran out into the hall and looked around for them and saw Sanji and Vivi slip back into the main room.

"Vivi, what was that all about?" Sanji asked once they were safely in the room.

"They're CP9, government ninja-assassins. Kohza's been ruffling some feathers lately and they were just trying to get an upper hand on him. I'm sorry you've gotten involved."

"S'okay, I probably would've beaten up the wolf anyway." He maneuvered them through the crowd until he found Chaka and Pell and told them what was going on. They understood completely and got Vivi away from the party without actually disturbing it. Sanji wandered to the stage where Brooke was just going on his second break.

"Yohoho! That was awesome. Sanji, you seem a bit flustered, did something…" Brooke stopped talking to grab Sanji's wrist and pull him out of the way before he was hit with what could only be described as a finger gun, the bullet currently embedded in the wall. The man in the top hat pulled his finger back and disappeared into the crowd of people, Brooke and Sanji being the only ones to notice him in the first place.

"Sanji, do you mind telling me why CP9 is trying to kill you?"

"They were after Vivi, I stopped them. Why do you know who they are?"

"Another story for another time I'm afraid." Brooke grabbed his cane and top hat. "Let's see if we can take this outside so no one gets hurt." He headed for the nearest door and Sanji hurried to keep up, noticing the man following them.

Once outside Brooke and Sanji turned to face the mysterious man. "Brooke," the man said, "I didn't expect to see you again so soon."

"Neither did I expect to ever see you again, Lucci." Brooke responded. "Why attack Sanji? He has nothing to do with Vivi or Kohza or whatever you're supposed to be after."

The man called Lucci sighed. "He became a loose end. I hate loose ends."

Sanji lit a cigarette. "You think I'm that easy to kill? Shitty bastard."

"Not kill per say. Just keep from talking. It's not very good for me to go around killing civilians."

"Again." Brooke added and drew his shikomizue and pointed it at Lucci. "How many civilians are you allowed to kill this time?"

"Just the ones that the government doesn't find out about." He crouched into his fighting stance.

"Really?" Sanji raised an eyebrow and withdrew his cell phone from his pocket. "Did you get all that marimo?"

"Yeah." Zoro responded through the phone. "You get yourself into the weirdest situations."

Lucci stared wide-eyed at the phone. "When did you…how much…"

"Yeah, he's been listening the whole time." Sanji grinned. "I called him after I got Vivi to Chaka and Pell. I'm actually surprised you didn't realize it sooner."

Lucci rubbed his temples. "Clearly I need more training. I suppose there's no use asking you who and where he is?"

"No." Brooke said. "It doesn't matter anyway and you know it. He can just get someone else on the line and then the chain will never end. But I'm sure the government officials would be so glad to hear your stance on civilian killing…"

"You _recorded_ everything?" Sanji and Brooke nodded. Zoro remained silent. "Unless you're bluffing."

"Are you really willing to risk that?" Sanji asked.

Lucci sighed. "What do you want?"

"Well, for starters, not dying would be a good thing; leaving Vivi alone would be another."

"What would you have me tell the government? Don't think they'd just let me slide with that."

"The truth then; everything was going fine until a civilian interfered to save his friend." Brooke said.

"I guess…there's no choice." Lucci turned to leave. "Don't think this is over though, chef." Sanji blinked and he was gone.

"Well, this tops my list of weirdest nights ever."

"I dunno...there was that one night when we went to Atlantic City with Bon…" Zoro said.

"Well this is definitely a close second then."

"Zoro," Brooke said, sheathing his sword, "you didn't set up the recording equipment, did you?"

"What equipment? It's not like we've got that kind of stuff just laying around here you know!"

Sanji sighed. "Good thing he bought the bluff. You really are an idiot you know?"

"Hey, I'm not the one who gets involved in secret government plots."

"Well, after all of this excitement, I don't really want to back in there." Brooke said. "What are you two up to for the rest of the night?"

"Nothing I guess."

"I just finished off everything in the fridge, so I'm free."

"Idiot! That had to last us until the end of the week!"

"You can just get some more from work."

"We can't survive off of restaurant leftovers for the rest of the week!"

"Yohoho! What a dilemma! Well, I think Ace said he was free tonight too, so why don't I just get my check and we'll go meet up somewhere, hm?" Sanji had taken the phone off of speaker and was too busy yelling at it to pay attention to Brooke. He just sighed and went on ahead.

* * *

**Madamoiselle- **French meaning 'Miss'

**Shikomizue**- A cane sword, like Brooke's.


	12. Kuleha

**WOOOOOO!! I'm feeling a bit silly. Sorry. Anyway, this is Kuleha as requested by Krentenbol. Next up is Cindry.  
**

**I...don't have much to say about this. Other than it kind of made me a fan of Kuleha x Zeff. Just a little.**

**Enjoy.**

**Reviews:**

**dandy wondrous: **Thank you! Yeah, those Ninja-assassins like to sneak up on you. And no, you don't want to know. Or do you? o_O

**ShaolinQueen: **Thank you! A perfect combination between smart!sanji and morning!sanji...I wonder if I could pull that off...maybe next time. No, not quite...but I hope you enjoy it anyway.

**ohlordies: **Thank you very much! It does doesn't it? Like it shouldn't but it does. ;p And I hope I don't disappoint!

**Splatter Fall: **Yeah, he really should take the hint. ;p He should have his own buissness cards.

**Krentenbol: **So true, on every level. Yes! Mr. Nine is probably my favorite male not-Mr. 2-baroque works agent! Shame he got so little screen time...I wonder whatever happened to him...

**debuzz: **Plot! Where?! Maybe, probably. Cindry's next right? So yeah. Thank you!

**kingston: **Well, between you, me, and everyone else reading this, Lucci was originally suppose to be Naruto. O_O Sanji and Zoro were supposed to get into this whole thing about ninja-assassins vs assasin-ninjas but yeah. It got wierd so Naruto became Lucci, and Lucci became out of charactor. That alternate ending might be it, unless I get convinced and inspired enough to write a SUPER SECRET SPECIAL date later. Maybe as a Zoro-birthday special?

**HorusTheAvenger: **Thank you very much! I'm glad you are enjoying it so much!

**ReadR: **Well, let's just say they met up with Ivankov and Inazuma and there may or may not have been extreme cross-dressing/gender-bending...now I'm interested in what happened. I might write something about it later.

**And I don't own One Piece, but Sanji's on the new cover story! *fangirl squeal* Did Zoro ever have a cover story? I don't think so!**

* * *

"Hey dumbass! Watch what you're doing!" Sanji shouted.

"What're ya talkn' 'bout?" Carne answered, "I'm just cook'n over here!"

"No, what you're doing is trying to poison all of our customers away! Do you want this place to go out of business, or are you really just that stupid?!"

Carne was about to retort when Zeff kicked them both in the head. "Eggplant! Your shift ended thirty minutes ago! What are you still doing back here?!"

"Trying to keep this place in business!"

"My cook'n ain't that bad stupid brat!" Two more kicks to the head.

"Shaddap! Eggplant, get out of here! I refuse to pay you for overtime!"

"Che, whatever shit-geezer." He sauntered out of the kitchen and fished through his pockets for his caner stick.

"Sanji!" Sanji looked up to see Chopper waving eagerly at him, sitting at a table with an elder women dressed in striking purple pants with a matching jacket, a white t-shirt with a pink flower on it, sporting a belly ring, who could only possible be the young doctor's mentor/adopted mother, Dr. Kuleha.

Sanji put his unlit cigarette back in his pocket and walked over to them. "Chopper. And Dr. Kuleha I presume? What brings you here?"

"Doctorine is in town for a convention of some kind, so I'm treating her to lunch." Chopper replied. "Are you off right now? Do you wanna join us?"

"Of course." Sanji sat down in between them.

"That was quite some argument in the kitchen before…" Kuleha said. Sanji blushed a little.

"So you overheard that…they usually aren't that loud…"

"Yes they are." Chopper stated bluntly. "Sanji, are you giving the other cooks a hard time again?"

"I wouldn't have to if they had even the slightest idea of what they were doing."

"They're not going to get any better with you kicking them through walls you know." Sanji shrugged.

"So you're Zeff's protégé, am I right?" asked Kuleha.

"Tch. If you want to put it that way…I suppose." Sanji answered. The strange doctor cast a scrutinizing glance over his person.

"He and I go back a bit you know."

Sanji felt fidgety for some reason. "Yes, I've heard…"

Suddenly Chopper's beeper went off. "Gah! It's an emergency! I'm sorry Doctorine, I need to go. But, you can play with Sanji until I'm done."

"Of course, I wouldn't except you to abandon your patients just for me. Besides, this kid looks fun." She winked at Sanji.

"Yeah, wait what?"

"You don't mind do you Sanji? You wouldn't abandon a defenseless lady in an unknown town all by herself would you?"

"Kuleha is many things, but defenseless ain't one of them." Zeff said, appearing out of nowhere. "How've you been?"

"Been doing good, keeping busy. How's the leg?"

"Bah, old news. So you gonna kidnap my Sous Chef now?"

"Well, my little Tanuki is leaving, and this town _is_ unknown territory. Who knows what some people might do to obtain the secret of my youth?"

Zeff chuckled. "If that's the case, I could lend you my Lil' Eggplant for a while. We won't really need him until the dinner rush anyway."

"Ah, there you go then. You can play with Sanji while I'm gone." Chopper hopped out of his chair. "Bye Doctorine, Zeff. Thanks again Sanji!" And with that, he left.

"Well, I don't want to spend all day sitting around this dump. We should head out." She stood up and grabbed Sanji's wrist and pulled him into a standing position.

"Whoa, wait what?"

"You can just put this all on Sanji can't you?" She asked Zeff.

"Of course. Everyone does it." Zeff chuckled.

"Doesn't mean they _should_ though…" Sanji muttered.

"Oh, but you wouldn't make a young lady such as myself pay for it would you?" Kuleha grinned and winked at him.

"I-uh-I-oh, forget it." Zeff chuckled again.

"You have fun you two!" Zeff shouted as Kuleha pulled Sanji out of the restaurant and onto the streets.

* * *

"So, where to first, my lady?" Sanji asked while putting on his sunglasses.

"I need to do some shopping. I heard this town has some lovely boutiques, and you look like you're up to carrying a bag or two."

"Did you just kidnap me to be a pack-mule?"

"Heeheehee, don't look so down on yourself." She patted his cheek. "Now c'mon! We're burning daylight here!" She dragged him down the street and into the nearest clothing store.

"Chopper's gonna owe me _big_ time…" Sanji muttered as Kuleha started going through the clothing racks.

"What's your size?" She shouted over to him. "Your color is obviously blue, but what size are you?"

"Wait…are you shopping for me?"

"Heehee, maybe." She pulled out a blue skirt.

"You know I'm a guy right?"

"Yes, I am a doctor. Chopper told you to keep me entertained though, right?" She smirked and went to go look at blouses. Sanji ground his teeth together.

"Owes me _soo_ much…"

After picking out a whole bunch of outfits, Sanji was pushed into a dressing room.

"Is the cross-dressing actually necessary?"

"Of course! I'm being entertained, aren't I?" He could hear her smirking.

"Yeah Sanji, we want to see you in a skirt!" He knew that voice…

"N-Nami Swan?! What are you doing here?"

"Well, Robin, Vivi, and I were having a girls' day out and we just _happened_ to wander in and Doctorine here just _happened_ to find us..."

"Robin and Vivi are here too?" Sanji groaned.

"Now Mr. Cook, you wouldn't want to disappoint us would you?"

"If…if you're feeling uncomfortable about it Sanji…you don't have to…"

"What are you talking about Vivi, of course he does. Right, Sanji?" He could hear Nami smirking too…but at least hers was cute, he assumed.

"You can do this Sanji…it's for the girls…" he gritted his teeth and got changed.

When he appeared from the dressing room ten minutes later, wearing a light blue blouse with a matching skirt _and_ heels, the girls were outside waiting expectantly.

"You're right! The blue really does bring out his eyes…" Nami said.

"Sanji…you look so adorable!" Vivi said, blushing. Robin and Kuleha shared a laugh. Nami brought out her phone and took a few pictures.

"Nami…is that necessary…?" Sanji asked dejectedly.

"Of course, we wouldn't want everyone else to miss out on this now would we? Share the memories Sanji!"

"Wait…you're _sending_ them to people?" His face went horrorstruck.

"Just a few people…Kaya couldn't come today…Zoro's an obvious choice…Bon Clay might get a thrill out of it…" Sanji froze as she hit the send button.

"You didn't…just…to Zoro…and _Bon_…Nami Swaaan! Why do you do this to me?" He put his arm in front of his eyes and turned his head away.

"Aw…" emitted from all the girls, and a few customers who stopped by to see what was going on. Nami snapped her camera phone again.

"_You remind me of a few of my famous friends…_" Zoro's text ringtone. Sanji groaned, he didn't really want to deal with this right now, but answered anyway.

_Sanji-_

_U knw weve ben frnds since Hskool…n u cn tel me nething…rigt? Cuz u knw i dnt judge…Luf dnt care ether...jus want u 2 knw we suport u no mater wat… _

Sanji had to use the majority of his self restraint to not break his phone while he texted back:

_FUCK YOU_

He slammed his phone shut and turned back into the dressing room. "I'm going to change."

"Good idea, you can try on the red one now." Kuleha chuckled. Sanji twitched

* * *

"Heeheehee, well that was surely entertaining." Kuleha remarked while guzzling down something from a bottle that Sanji didn't know where she got it from.

Sanji sighed. He was back in his black suit with his blue-pinstripe shirt. "At least one of us was entertained…"

She stopped outside a medical store. "Come on." She grabbed his wrist and dragged him inside.

"Am I going to have to be a guinea pig, because I _do_ still have some pride."

"I'm a doctor first. I would never jeopardize you health seriously in anyway." She started looking around. "Chopper's been overworking himself again. When he does that he forgets to take care of his body and who knows what he tries to put in it to try and keep up. Doctors always forget to look after themselves."

Sanji looked at her curiously. "I handle most of his meals. He's getting enough nutrients if that's what you're worried about."

"I'm not worried. And you can't control everything he puts into his body, can you?"She grabbed a bunch of things that Sanji didn't quite know the name to and made her way to the checkout counter. "You'll be paying, right?"

Sanji sighed and handed her his credit card.

* * *

"Well, this was quite a day, eh kid?"

"Yeah, I guess. What are you going to do with that?" He nodded at the bag.

"This? It's a surprise for Chopper. Don't go squealing now…" She got a gleam in her eye that made Sanji not even consider crossing her. They had ended up on the boardwalk overlooking the ocean. Sanji stopped and leaned against the railing. "Don't you have to head back to work soon?" Sanji took a puff from his cigarette.

"Not for a few more hours." Sanji stared up at the sky. Kuleha jumped and sat on the railing next to him with more agility then should be allowed for her age.

"Should I even bother asking?"

"Hm?" Sanji looked at her curiously.

"You've been distance for the past hour or so. I don't need to be a doctor to know something's up."

"I guess." Sanji took another puff from his cigarette.

"SANJI!!" Said man looked up just in time to see Luffy come flying at him and knocking him over the edge of the railing. Zoro winced.

"How high up is this?" he asked. Kuleha looked down.

"I'd say about twenty feet, give or take."

"Those medical bills are going to be expensive…"

* * *

Sanji woke up to find himself face down without a shirt on the couch in his apartment. He tried to sit up, but the immense pain that shot through his back had other plans.

"Ow." He collapsed back onto the couch.

"Ya happy?" Sanji turned his head to find Kuleha and Zoro standing over him.

"Wut happened?" He asked.

"You broke your back." Zoro answered simply. Sanji just blinked.

"I had to do an emergency procedure to re-align the bones in your spin. Your roommate here mentioned how your insurance might not cover random idiots pushing you off of boardwalks, so I brought you back here and healed you myself." She took a drink from her bottle. "Now it's off the insurance, but you owe me."

"Chopper'll pay. He owes me." He turned over and tried to sleep.

"Heeheehee, I'll bet." She turned to Zoro and handed him some pills. "Just make sure he takes these twice a day with food. He'll be back to his annoying self in old time."

"Oh joy."

"Well I best be off. Chopper's been calling me for the past half hour. Probably worried his little head off." She downed the rest of the bottle before throwing it into the trash and leaving without another backwards glance.

"She seems interesting…" Zoro commented. Sanji made a non-committal grunt. He moved Sanji's legs and sat down. "Look, Sanji, about those pictures…"

Sanji growled. "She and Nami and Robin made me! I demand that you delete them and never speak of it again!"

"Aw, but Bon's going to be so upset." Zoro smirked. "He's been trying to get into your pants almost since we moved in…"

"Don't care. Burn them."

"They're digital. Besides, you do look kind of cute." Sanji wrapped his legs around the other man's waist and squeezed. He thought he heard a few ribs crack. "Okay, they're gone…from my phone anyway."

Sanji turned his head and looked at him. "What…"

"Luffy thought you looked cute too. Never knew he had a cross-dressing kink. And of course, Bon's got his copies and I'm sure Nami made plenty of back-ups by now…"

"For your sake I hope you're kidding." Zoro laughed.

"Of course I am. We're not that creepy." He slapped Sanji on the back. Sanji hissed with pain. "Sorry." Sanji shot him a murderous glare. "I'm…just going to go to bed now…you gonna sleep here…I guess so, you can't move!" he made a nervous laugh as he got up. Sanji turned his head and continued glaring. "Goodnight!" Zoro rushed into his room and slammed the door. Sanji grumbled and turned his head over to get some sleep.

* * *

**For those of you who are wondering, the ringtone is from _I Have Friends in Holy Spaces_ by Panic! At the Disco. As for why...well, it was what was playing when I was writing that. ;p Oh, I don't own that either.**


	13. Cindry

***Offers up plate of apology cookies as a sacrifice* I'm sorry I've been slacking! I had finals and the end of school and Job Hunt 09 and yeah, I've been busy. I'm sorry.  
**

**But now I bring you a brand-spanking new chapter starring Cindry as requested by Krentenbol! I used my 'creative liberties' and combined the Stage Actoress Victoria Cindry with the Plate-hating Cindry-chan to create the Maid/servant/stagegirl that works for Moria and Hogback. This chapter also had to go through a rewrite because the focus shifted completely away from Sanji and Cindry and it turned into some kind of...gang war or something. Probably would have turned out something like 'West Side Story' if I let it go on. Bonus points to anyone who can guess the play (it's not that hard, and it's not 'west side story,' btw). Anyway, next up is Lola, I think. **

**Enjoy.**

**Reviews:**

**dandy wonderous: **Yeah, I feel bad for him too. He's just so fun to abuse...ask Oda. ;p Yes, thank you, I'm not the only one who sees it! Thank you very much, and I will most certainly try!

**ShaolinQueen: **Yes, that seems to be the general consensous around these parts. Yeah, they are pretty sweet when they're together in my fan-mind, but only when they're with each other. That was one of my favorite parts too, so I'm glad you enjoyed it :D. Yeah stupid Marimo...thank you very much! I hope I don't disappoint.

**debuzz: **Maybe. Probably not, Sanji's going to need to be straight throughout this thing, but I did promise a Zoro birthday special last time didn't I? Hm. Ah, thank you! I was worried that I didn't get her quite right. Sweet a convert! And I hope I didn't disappoint!

**ohlordies: **Thank you! I'm sure the skirt was long enough...or they ignored it...or whatever. You and me both...

**Henna89: **Yeah, well, he gets the big bucks. You're welcome! And thank you very much! The awkward pairings is one of the reasons I love doing this so much. Yes, when Kuleha tells you to do something, you better freaking do it! :)

**ReadR: **And now you have! Let it seep in to your subconcious! *Looks at date of comment and wonders if the spoilers for chapter 544 were out at that time or if you're just a really good guesser.* Thank you and I hope you enjoy this one then!

**Oni Giri Slash: **Thanks, I try. He's my favorite, so if I can't get him half right then I'm happy. The 'mellorine' would have gotten in the way, so yeah, I removed it. Glad it works though. Thank you very much!

**As always, I don't own One Piece...or do I? (I don't).**

* * *

Zoro was sitting on the bed, staring at his roommate with that look that said "what the hell did you just say?" Sanji opted to ignore said look and continue getting ready, forcing Zoro to vocalize said look, "What the hell did you just say?"

Sanji sighed. "It's not that big of a deal…"

"Oh then I must have heard something different then what you actually said. See, I heard that you had to get seven stitches in your head today because some crazy girl broke into the kitchen and smashed a stack of dishes on your head, and instead of pressing charges like any reasonable person would, you instead asked her out. But I'm glad to know that's not how it went down."

"Well when you put it that way…" Zoro smacked his forehead.

"How desperate are you man? You can at least have some dignity and not ask out random strangers who assault you."

"It's not like I'm running around asking out random strangers." Sanji finished tying his tie and went searching through the closet for a matching vest for his red pinstripe shirt. "I've met Cindry before…you have to actually."

"I think I'd remember if I'd met any plate-hating crazies in the past seven lifetimes."

Sanji rolled his eyes and selected a black vest. "She works for Moria. More specifically she works for Hogback, you know, Perona's uncle."

"The crazy one? Tried to dissect you and Chopper when we went to Perona's that one time?"

"That's the one. Cindry was there too, remember."

"Yeah…she smashed a stack of plates on my head." He rubbed his head in remembrance. "Don't know why I didn't make the connection sooner."

"She didn't mean to hurt me anyway; I just got in the way." He checked out his reflection in the mirror.

"Yeah, because most people know to watch out for the random smashing of plates in their own kitchen."

"Anyway," Sanji went on ignoring the last comment, "she wanted to apologize by taking me out to see the show. She had an extra ticket and who am I to complain about being in the presence of a beautiful lady for a night." He spotted a fedora on the dresser and put it on.

"She never made it up to me…"

"Because it was in her house, you don't like the theater, and you deserved it anyway." He put a cigarette in his mouth and turned his head to see how it looked.

"I just walked through the door and she slammed plates on my head!"

"She must have thought you were a moss-ball that the wind blew into the house."

"And her reaction was to smash plates on it and shout 'Plates are the devil!?'"

"Yup." Sanji turned to face his roommate. "What do you think?"

"Hideous. And what's up with the fedora?"

"You can _never_ go wrong with a fedora." He turned and left the room. Zoro followed.

"Y'know," Zoro started, "Tash says that the Moria family has been under heavy investigation recently."

"It's a mob family; they're always under heavy investigation."

"More so than usually if she bothered to mention it." Zoro shrugged. "It's just, you're always in the wrong place at the wrong time and I really don't feel like bailing you out of jail tonight."

"I'm not _always_ in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"Need I remind you of Duval and the Alabasta baths incident?"

Sanji was speechless for a few seconds. "Two instances doesn't make 'always.'"

Zoro sighed. "Fine. But my point still stands; she may just be a maid/servant/showgirl or whatever, but she's still a way inside and people might want to take advantage of that to bring the Moria family down."

"I'll keep an eye out then _mom_." Sanji grabbed Zoro's keys and left with a "Don't eat all of my food!"

* * *

Sanji managed to find a parking spot a block away from the theater. He walked up to the entrance to see Cindry talking to a fat man with black hair wearing sunglasses despite the fact that it was nighttime, purple gloves, pants, and a fishnet jacket, who he remembered to be Perona's uncle, Dr. Hogback. Hogback locked eyes with Sanji for the briefest of seconds before nodded at him and walking away. Cindry turned around then, looking good in her little black dress and pink fur scarf. She smiled at him and walked over.

"Good you're here."

He took her hand and placed a kiss on it. "Of course. Why would I miss out on the chance to be in the company of a lady as lovely as yourself?" She giggled. He nodded at the space over her shoulder that Hogback occupied a few moments ago. "Is everything alright?"

She nodded. "Yeah, just some stuff. Nothing really all that important. Shall we go in? I've been waiting to see this show for a while. I'm so glad Master Moria agreed to get me tickets for it…"

Sanji noticed the deflection of the topic, but decided that it really wasn't any of his business and went along with it.

Their seats were in the middle of the third row by the orchestra. Cindry was thrilled and Sanji was thrilled that she was so thrilled. As they sat down, Cindry explained how it was her dream to one day go into theater and become a world-renowned actress.

"You should! The acting world would benefit greatly from beautiful talent such as yours!"

Cindry blushed. "N-no. It's just a silly childhood dream. Surely you've even given up on those by now."

"Well, my childhood dream was to be a pirate chef and sail the world while still being able to cook," Sanji said truthfully, "but, since I don't really want to move to Somalia right now, working at a seafood restaurant is really the next best thing." He tugged his fedora over his eyes. Cindry flicked it back up and smiled.

"More people need resolve like yours then, Sanji Blackleg." Sanji gave her a puzzled look, but just then the house lights went out, the curtains opened, and the play began.

* * *

It wasn't that Sanji didn't _like_ the play; he found it entertaining to a degree. Who wouldn't love a tale of four lovers, love-potion mix-ups, donkey-men, and one little trickster who you could easily give a straw hat and call 'Luffy?' His eyes certainly weren't wandering because he was _bored_ at any rate. He was just a bit tired, and distracted is all. Really.

When his eyes did wander, they happened to wander up to the box seats where all of the rich-people were sitting with their opera glasses trained unblinkingly at the stage. All except one. There was one odd pair out that seemed to be looking directly at Sanji and Cindry; so naturally, Sanji glared right back at them. He vaguely recalled Zoro's warning from before he left and slid an arm protectively around Cindry, who seemed not to notice and laughed at the silly antics of the characters on stage with the rest of the audience. The opera glasses seemed to get the message and turned towards the stage. Sanji smirked with his small victory.

* * *

Intermission came so Sanji and Cindry stepped outside to stretch their legs while Sanji had a cigarette.

"You don't mind do you?"

Cindry shook her head. "I've inhaled worse working with Dr. Hogback."

"Why do you then?"

She blinked. "Pardon?"

"Why do you work for him? Why don't you become an actress? You love the theater and you'd be really good at it."

Cindry bit her lip and turned away. "It's…complicated. I can't leave him. He saved my life after all, him and Master Moria. I owe them so much…but, I guess I can't expect you to understand…"

Sanji shook his head. "No, I understand more than you think." He exhaled and watched the smoke drift upwards. Cindry noticed the distant look in his eye and wanted to inquire further, but knew that it was far too personal to even consider. Instead she looked down the street and spotted some people she knew.

"I'll be right back, okay?" Sanji blinked and nodded as she walked away.

"We meet again, Mr. Chef." Sanji spun around only to be face-to-face with no one other than Rob Lucci.

Sanji glared at him. "What are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be stopping terrorists or kidnapping maidens or whatever it is that you supposedly do?"

Lucci just smirked. "I wouldn't expect a mere cook to understand the sacrifices needed for Absolute Justice."

"That's first-class chef to you, and I get by with my own justice just fine. Less dead civilians that way, you know."

Lucci's eyes darkened, but the smirk remained intact. "That is neither here nor there right now, Mr. Chef. Shall we get to the business at hand?"

"What do you want?"

"As you may or may not know, there has been an increase in mob activity recently. Everything seems to point at the Moria family, however nothing can be proven, the tricky bastard."

"What does that have to do with me?"

"You are aware of your 'date's' current employer am I right?" Sanji slowly nodded. "We get her with something, she squeals about what Moria's been up to, we get him and his crime organization."

"Cindry hasn't done anything wrong. And I refuse to help you frame her for anything."

"Oh really?" Lucci reached out and lifted Sanji's bangs, revealing the stitches he got earlier that day. Sanji swatted his hand away.

"Don't touch me pervert."

He just smirked. "Where did you get those stitches, Mr. Chef, cooking accident perhaps?"

"Yeah. Someone tripped while carrying some plates. No real harm done."

"Really? Are you sure the plate-hating Victoria Cindry didn't smash a pile of dishes on your head?"

"I said, Cindry hasn't done anything wrong. I'm not going to accuse an innocent lady of anything like that."

"Are you sure? I wonder, Mr. Chef. What is Zoro Roronoa doing tonight?" Sanji just stared wide-eyed at him.

Suddenly the crowd started moving back towards the theater. Cindry came up and took his arm and Sanji looked down at her. "Come on, the intermission is over. Let's hurry back." She said.

Sanji looked up to find Rob Lucci mysteriously vanished. "Something wrong?" Cindry asked.

"No, nothing's wrong." He threw his spent cigarette on the ground, put his arm around Cindry and walked back into the theater.

* * *

If Sanji was distracted for the first half of the play, then he didn't quite know how to describe his current state during the second half. He texted Zoro when he got back to the theater just to make sure everything was okay, but hadn't received a response yet. His phone was on silent, so this led to him checking it ever five seconds just to make sure Zoro hadn't texted him back yet. Sanji wasn't worried though. The idiot probably forgot to charge it or left it at Luffy and Usopp's again or something stupid like that. Doesn't necessarily mean he got kidnapped by government assassin-ninjas or anything like that.

Sanji was a bit restless throughout the rest of the play. Cindry noticed, but concluded that the middle of the theater during a performance wasn't the best place to talk about these things and opted to wait until afterwards.

The play ended, people clapped, actors bowed, curtains fell, the whole ending shebang. Sanji stood up to leave only to have Cindry tugging on his arm. "Please wait." She said. Sanji, never one to disappoint a lady, obliged.

They waited in silence until everyone else left the theater. "I'm sorry." Cindry started, looking at her hands which where twiddling in her lap.

Sanji blinked. "For what? You haven't done anything." Cindry shook her head.

"CP9 is here. I don't know where, but they want to use me to get to Master Moria. You've been dragged into this because of me, and I don't know what they said or did to you during intermission, but whatever it is, I'm sorry."

Sanji turned her head so she was facing him. "It's not your fault, Cindry."

Her eyes started watering. "But…it is."

An evil laugh filled the theater. "That's right, it is." They turned around to see Rob Lucci seated three rows back with a pigeon on his shoulder.

"What's with the pigeon?" Sanji felt the need to ask.

Lucci shrugged. "Hattori likes Shakespeare."

"L-Lucci!" Cindry remarked. "They put _you_ on this case?"

The man in question smirked and nodded. "You should feel honored that the government called me in to deal with the likes of you."

Cindry paled. Sanji glared and said, "I told you, she didn't do anything wrong. There's no need for the government to-"

"I think _I'm_ better qualified to decide what the government needs to do than _you_ are, Mr. Chef." Lucci stood up and Sanji followed suit. "In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" The stoic man suddenly started bursting out if fits of laughter. "If HAHAHA you just HAHAHA…"

Cindry stood up and hid behind Sanji who just looked on in complete confusion.

"Colors Trap: Yellow, color of laughter." Sanji looked up behind where Rob Lucci was standing to see April Goldenweek with her brush out and dipped in yellow paint and a man wearing khakis, glasses, and a blue and white striped shirt with a pink bowtie who had his hair tied up in what resembled the number three. It took him a moment to remember that this was Galdino, April's father.

"You aren't looking so good there," Galdino said to Lucci. "Why don't you take a breather outside for a moment."

"HAHA don't you HAHAHA interfere…"

While Galdino distracted Lucci with meaningless conversation, April had wandered over to Sanji and Cindry and grabbed Sanji's hand. "This way." She said as she pulled Sanji towards one of the exits by the stage. Sanji grabbed Cindry's hand and dragged her along too.

"April!? How…what…" Sanji managed to stammer out once they were safely outside of the theater. He looked down at the little girl who was looking at her feet and kicking the dirt. "Thank you very much." He finally said. April looked up and smiled.

"I…better get going." Cindry said. She hugged Sanji. "I'm sorry about everything, but, thank you very much for tonight." She leaned up and kissed his cheek before pulling away, leaving a blushing and speechless chef and a glaring artist. "And thank you and your father for all of your help." She said, turning to face April. April just nodded. Cindry smiled before turning and leaving.

Sanji shook his head before kneeling down to April's eye level. "So, why are you-" He got cut off by a very generic ringtone. April plunged her hand into her bag and pulled out a cell phone.

"Yes?" She asked the other end. "Yes, he's still inside." A pause. "She just left, but she should be fine." Another pause. "He's right here." A third pause before she offered the phone to Sanji with an "It's for you."

Sanji placed the phone by his ear, "Hello?"

"Hello, Mr. Cook, I'm glad that you're okay."

Sanji blinked. "R-robin?! What's going on? Why's April here?"

Robin laughed on the other end. "Zoro may have mentioned to me that you were taking out Victoria Cindry tonight. I know of the governments desperation to catch anyone affiliated with the Moria family and your habit of being caught in the middle of these things, so I sent you some help."

"But…how…"

"A few years ago I used to run a not-all-that-legal group called Baroque Works."

"Yes, I know, but…"

"Galdino and Ms. Goldenweek here were members of that organization. I…called in a favor, or so to speak, just to make sure CP9 didn't do anything to you."

Sanji smiled. "Thank you very much for your concern, Robin."

"Any time, Mr. Cook."

Sanji looked at the wall nearby and blushed a little. "Um…Zoro…"

"Don't worry, he's fine. I sent another Agent to look after him for tonight too."

"I bet he's happy about having a baby-sitter."

Robin laughed. "Well, the Agent I sent over is pretty persistent."

Just then Galdino came running out of the door behind Sanji, slammed it shut, and moved a nearby box in front of it.

"The door opens to the inside you know…" Sanji said.

Galdino shook it off. "Whatever. You're not CP9's next meal right now, so there's no point in us staying any longer. Come on April."

"It was nice seeing you again Mr. Sanji." April said as Sanji handed back her phone.

"It was nice seeing you again too, April." She smiled a little before running off after her father.

* * *

Sanji opened the door to his apartment a crack and peaked inside. It was completely dark. Robin had said that an Agent was keeping Zoro safe, but something still made Sanji feel a bit uneasy. He went inside, turned on the light, and flopped on the couch anyway.

Not ten seconds later the door burst open as Zoro stomped in carrying a sleeping Luffy on his back.

"Well, what crawled up your-" Sanji started before a call of "SAAAAN DEAR!!" reached his ears and gave him his answer.

"San dear!" Bon Clay twirled into the apartment right behind Zoro. "We missed you tonight!"

Sanji smiled. "Sorry Bon, I had a previous engagement, but from the looks of things I missed out on quite a night." Zoro glared daggers at him.

"Oh, you should have come! Luffy and Zoro darling here had a wonderful time didn't you?" Bon Clay apparently took the daggers in Zoro's eyes as an affirmative to the statement. "See?"

"Sounds like you all had a blast. You should take Zoro out more often." Zoro deposited Luffy on the couch next to Sanji before taking the fedora, putting it on his own head and hitting his roommate on the head hard.

"It was truly a magnificent evening! The only thing that could have made it better was if you had accompanied us. I trust your night went well?"

Sanji paused for a moment. "Yeah, it went well."

"Maybe you should go now, Bon." Zoro said, the restraint in his voice pretty obvious. "Didn't you leave the oven on or something?"

"No silly I don't use my oven." He caught a whiff of the deadly aura Zoro was emitting. "B-but I might have left the iron on or something. _Adieu_!"

"Tell Robin I said 'Thanks,' Bon." Sanji shouted after him as he twirled out of the apartment.

"Of course, San dear!" And wit that he was gone. Zoro flopped on the chair next to the couch.

"Rough night?" Sanji asked.

"He just randomly came in and kidnapped us and took us to a gay bar." Sanji laughed.

"He did _what_ now?"

"He took us to a gay bar. I kept getting hit on by muscular men wearing dresses. Luffy found it amusing."

"Well, there's nothing wrong with a little cross-dressing, you know."

"Yeah you would say that." Zoro rolled his eyes. "So how was your night?"

"It was-" he paused for a bit, "better than yours."

"Hm, well, it's not that hard to achieve that; my night was crap." He stood up and tossed the fedora back to Sanji. "I'm going to try and wash this night off of me."

"Good luck." Zoro went off to the bathroom as Sanji put the fedora back on his head. Luffy let off a particularly loud snore which caused him to smile warmly at him.


	14. Camie

**Now, I would have had this up last night, but FF was being all screwy and not allowing it. Blame them.**

**As for why I'm doing Camie instead of Lola, well, there was a Seafood Festival yesterday. I couldn't go because it's supposed to be in AUGUST but because it's JUNE I opted to not go down the shore this weekend. TT_TT So I decided to let Sanji go instead and Camie is a much better compainion for something like this than Lola. For those of you who where waiting patently for Lola, the good news about this is I might have her up either later today or sometime tomorrow because of the change. :D**

**So, this is Camie, as requested by ReadR. Next up is Lola (this time for sure).**

**Enjoy.**

**Reviews:**

**dandy wonderous: **No, you really _can't_ go wrong with a fedora :D. Whoa. My sister also played Peaseblossom. Small world. Yes she's back! And Sanji could use a break...I torture him so. Zoro always gets off easy though...

**Oni Giri Slash: **Yes, props to the alligator. Thank you and you're welcome. :) Le gasp! Moi aussi! Well, I know enough French to know what you where saying, and I'm still kind of learning Japanese, so yeah. Thank you :) and he is, he really is.

**ShaolinQueen: **They are. If only he actually met her in Little Garden...I wonder how that would have gone down? Me too. Haha, yeah, I'm glad you liked it :). Thank you very much! And yeah, it was :)

**Phalanx: **Thank you! I'm glad you appreciate them. :)

**ohlordies: **Yes he does. He knows things..._ _

**debuzz: **Couldn't agree more! Yeah, she really is. I know right? They're the best. Thank you very much!

**ChainofDreams: **Thank you! Yes, at least Sanji didn't end up at a gay bar...yet. *checks* He alreday took Miss Goldenweek out in chapter 8. I think it was cute. :) Hope I don't disappoint. And congrats on finishing!

**Henna89: **Well, he did turn into Zoro in ID, but that was mostly for Luffy's sake...I mean, they're all friends! Yeah, she's on the list, so she's coming up...eventually. His civialry goes quite far...although I admit, I might be pushing it a bit ;p. Thank you very much, I'm glad you liked it!

**kingston: **Thank you very much! I'm glad you're enjoying it so much :D It took me half a second to realize what you meant there...

**I don't own One Piece. It would be crap if I did.**

* * *

Chopper leaned up against the glass looking in the tank with fascination written all over his face. "What's that one?" he asked, pointing at a weird looking fish.

"That," Usopp answered, "is the legendary Spotted Puck-puck. Its blood is used by only the greatest Tibetan Ninjas as an extremely deadly poison for coating their throwing needles. Of course, I've survived this attack and end up creating the only known antidote for said poison. After defeating the Tibetan Ninjas and giving the antidote to the numerous civilians who were terrorized by them, I was declared a national hero. They still celebrate my birthday as a national holiday to this day!"

"Wow really Usopp? That's amazing!"

"It's an Mbu puffer-fish," Sanji said, "otherwise known as a giant puffer or, more specifically, a giant fresh-water puffer. It's a carnivorous freshwater puffer-fish originating from the middle and lower sections of the Congo River in Africa, as well as the east coast of Lake Tanganyika near the Malagarasi River mouth. Since it's a puffer fish, it can be used in any puffer-fish recipes, but leaves an interesting aftertaste due to its diet of mollusks and crustaceans."

"Yeah, I knew that." Usopp said.

"Sounds delicious," Luffy commented. "I want some…" Zoro stood indifferent.

They'd been playing this game ever since they arrived at the aquarium: Chopper would pick a random fish, Usopp would tell a lie, Sanji would tell the truth, and Luffy would get hungry, and Zoro would be indifferent to the whole thing. As for why they were at the aquarium in the first place, well…

* * *

"Zooooooroooooo!" Luffy screamed as the skidded to a stop in front of the green-haired man on the couch watching TV.

"Luffy? How'd you get in here?"

"Door was open. But Zoro! Look!" Luffy shoved a picture of a colorful fish in his face.

"Um…it's a fish."

"Yeah! Let's go to the aquarium!"

"Why?"

"Because I wanna gooooooooo!"

Chopper and Usopp had entered at this point. Chopper had climbed up the back of the couch and positioned himself on Zoro's head while Usopp stood next to Luffy. "Please Zoro; we want to go to the aquarium!" Chopper said. Usopp and Luffy nodded pleadingly in unison.

"Why do you need me to take you?"

"You have a car!" Luffy exclaimed.

"So do-"

"Robin's at work," Usopp interrupted, "Franky and Brooke still aren't back from wherever they were last night, Nojiko and Nami borrowed Vivi's for a girl's day out, and Ace's is in the shop…again." He counted them off on his fingers.

"Get the cook to drive you. He likes fish." The trio rushed into Sanji's room. A half second later, Zoro remembered that Sanji was still sleeping when the three of them ended up crashing into the counter in the kitchen after being kicked out of Sanji's room. Sanji emerged after them still wearing his work clothes from the night before.

"**What do you want?**" Sanji asked menacingly.

"Saaanjii," Luffy pleaded, "you need to take us to the aquarium."

"**You woke me up to for that?!**" He raised his foot and Chopper and Usopp cowered and tried to back away. Luffy smiled and nodded.

"Yeah. So can you drive us? Zoro said you would."

"**He did, did he?**" Sanji turned to face his roommate who sunk further into the couch. Sanji smirked. "Okay, I'll take you all to the aquarium."

The trio was all wide-eyes and smiles. "Really?" they asked.

"Yeah, really. Just let me get changed first and then all five of us can go." Sanji walked back in his room. Zoro quickly counted in his head. Luffy + Chopper + Usopp + Sanji = four, so where is he getting…oh crap.

Sanji came back out wearing a light blue shirt with his black slacks. "Hey dartbrow, where did you get the notion that I wanted to go to the aquarium?"

"Oh, but it'll be fun. And they want you to come too, right Luffy?"

"Yeah!" Luffy said excitedly. "C'mon Zoro, it'll be fun! You have to come!"

"I don't want to go. I have stuff to do."

"Really?" Sanji smirked. "I recall you saying that you had 'nothing to do today but sit around and drink beer.'"

"That's boring. You're coming with us." Luffy grabbed Zoro's arm and started dragging him to the door. Zoro locked eyes with Sanji.

"I hate you." Sanji just smirked.

* * *

So here they were, at the aquarium. Staring at fish. Soo much better than sitting home drinking beer in Zoro's opinion. He was so getting the cook back for this…somehow.

Luffy had grown bored with the tank they were currently staring at and decided it would be a good idea to bolt to the other side of the room. Chopper joined him on this escapade until both of them crashed into a green-haired girl wearing a pink and yellow t-shirt with a star on it and a long pink skirt with matching heels. Sanji rushed forward while Usopp and Zoro believed it to be in their best interests to just hang back for a bit and watch how things played out.

"Assholes!" Sanji shouted as he kicked Luffy and Chopper away. "You need to watch were you're going! You almost hurt this beautiful young lady here! I'm very sorry for their behavior, Miss." He turned to offer her a hand, demeanor completely different then what it was only a few moments before.

"I-it's okay." She took his offered hand and he pulled her up into a standing position. "Thank you very much. I'm Camie." She smiled and Sanji could feel himself melting internally.

"Sanji." He replied. "Those two are Chopper and Luffy." At this point, the two mentioned had recovered and stood up.

"H-hello. Sorry about crashing into you…" said Chopper.

"Yo." Luffy waved.

"Nice to meet you two." Camie grinned.

"Wow, your hair is green like Zoro's! Are you two related?" Sanji kicked him upside the head.

"How dare you even consider someone as beautiful and precious as Camie being related to something as uncouth and uncaring as that Marimo head!" Camie laughed.

"Zoro? Who's that?"

"Zoro and Usopp are over there. They're our friends too." Luffy waved at them. Usopp shyly waved back and Zoro raised his eyebrow.

"So, what are you doing at the aquarium Camie?" Chopper asked. "Did you come to see the fish too?"

"Kinda. I work here part-time. I just love fish! It's so cool how they swim around in the tanks."

"Me too!" Sanji exclaimed. "We have so much in common."

"Sanji you cook fish." Luffy expertly put in. Sanji froze and Chopper buried his face into his hands. Camie just laughed.

"It's alright. I also work part-time at a takoyaki stand."

"What's that? Can I eat it?"

"Takoyaki is a popular Japanese dumpling made out of fried octopus, batter, diced tempura scraps, pickled ginger, and green onion, generally topped with okonomiyaki sauce, green laver, mayonnaise, and fish shavings." Sanji replied.

"Wow. You know a lot about it." Camie smiled. "Are you some kind of takoyaki expert?"

"Sanji's a world-class chef." Chopper spoke up. "He can cook anything, but he specializes in seafood."

"EH?! Really?! That's so cool!" Camie said excitedly. Sanji smiled.

"Hey Luffy, look at that over there!" Chopper said suddenly.

"What? Where?" Luffy looked around.

"There! We should go check it out. See you later Sanji! Nice meeting you Camie."

"Nice meeting you too!" The two of them ran back over to Usopp and Zoro, leaving Camie and Sanji alone.

"Chooooooopeeeeeeer! Why'd we come back over here?"

"Sorry Luffy, but Sanji got that look in his eye so I figured it'd be best if we left them alone."

"That stupid lovey-dovey look?" Zoro asked. Chopper nodded. "He always gets that look whenever boobs are in his line of sight. Doesn't mean you have to leave him alone."

"Yeah, but, he seemed generally interested in her this time."

"Really?" Zoro glanced over at them and saw Sanji grinning like an idiot while Camie was laughing at some stupid joke he probably told.

"Um, Zoro," Usopp poked his shoulder to get the older man's attention. "You've got that…look in your eyes."

"You're going to have to be more specific; I have several looks."

"That 'I-have-an-evil-plan-and-some-who's-most-likely-Sanji-is-going-to-suffer' look."

"Really? What a coincidence, because I just thought of an evil plan to make Sanji suffer."

"Ug, Zoro, is this in revenge for dragging you to the aquarium?"

"Maybe…"

"Don't do something you're going to regret later. Remember in high school, you two spent the better part of three years going back and forth with the whole 'vengeance' thing. Remember how that turned out?"

"Yeah, I won." Usopp sighed as Zoro walked over to where his roommate was talking up the purple-eyed girl.

"EH!? Really?! That's so cool!" He heard Camie say. "Hey, I was going to go to the Seafood Festival to see my friend. He's got his takoyaki stand set up there. You wanna come?"

What perfect timing. Zoro bounded forward and slung his arm around Sanji's shoulder. "A Seafood Festival, huh? That sounds interesting." He grinned and turned his head to face Sanji, whose face displayed an interesting mixture of shock, confusion, and annoyance all at once.

"Camie this is my roommate Zoro. Zoro this is Camie."

"Oh, nice to meet you." She smiled at him.

"And it's very nice to meet you too. You know who would love a good Seafood Festival? Luffy. Why don't we all go? The more the merrier right?"

"Yeah!" Camie said. "We can all go! I'm sure Hachi wouldn't mind. It'll be fun!"

"Awesome! Hey guys," He shouted toward the others, "we're going to the Seafood Festival. You want in?"

"Will there be food?" Luffy shouted back.

"Um…yeah."

"Then we are so in! Let's go guys!"

"Uh…I have a paper due tomorrow that completely slipped my mind." Usopp said. "I guess I'll have to sit this one out. Sorry Luffy."

"Yeah, I have an early shift at the hospital tomorrow, so I better get back too." Chopper said.

"Really?" Zoro raised an eyebrow at them. "Well, since I drove you all here, how on earth are you getting home?"

"We'll just take the bus, really, its fine. Luffy, do you want to come with us?" Usopp asked.

"Where home? Naw, I'd rather go to food."

"Y'know, there's food at home…"

Luffy seriously thought about it for a few seconds. "Still rather go to the Seafood thing."

Usopp sighed. "Okay, I guess. See ya later than." With that, he and Chopper left.

Luffy ran over to where Zoro, Sanji, and Camie where. "So, where's the food?"

* * *

Sanji was _not_ happy.

He was surrounded by seafood in the company of the adorable Camie, but this should be making him happy, rather than not happy.

No, the reason the cook wasn't happy was because a certain brain-dead roommate of his had the nerve to invite himself along this pleasant outing and had the gall to drag their equally brain-dead friend along for the ride. _That_ was making Sanji not happy.

Really, it wasn't all that bad. He was in his domain, surrounded by delicious fish, accompanied by a beautiful lady…

He just wished his so-called best friend would drag Luffy off somewhere else for a few hours.

Sanji was determined, however, to thwart whatever scheme Zoro had concocted and enjoy the situation no matter what.

"So Camie, did you know Sanji's petrified of bugs? In all shapes and sizes? Screams like a little girl whenever he sees one!"

No. Matter. What.

Sanji grabbed Luffy's shoulder as he came back over after his fiftieth time back from the spicy crab-cake sandwich stand. "Hey Luffy, do you think you can get Zoro to go somewhere else for a bit?"

The black-haired man swallowed his mouthful of crab-cake before replying, "I dunno Sanji. He's pretty determined to ruin your date with Camie."

Sanji blinked. "You noticed?"

"Yeah, but I didn't wanna say anything because I'm getting food out of the deal."

"You'll still get the food if you take him to the other side of the fairgrounds…"

"He's not going to want to come though. He's having too much fun making you miserable."

Sanji sighed. "Why is he doing this?! You don't think he's…jealous?"

"He's got Tashigi. He doesn't need Camie."

"Maybe he's worried about losing me to some random girl?"

"Um, no. He's not gay."

"I know that!" He sighed again. "If I knew why he was being such an ass then I could counter it better, but right now I'm like an ocean that's bumped on the shore!"

"Well, if it helps any, he mentioned something about trying to get back at you for dragging him to the aquarium this morning."

"You know, Luffy, that just might be exactly the reason why he's doing this!" Sanji kicked him in the shin.

"Ow! What was that for?"

"For not mentioning it earlier." Sanji looked up at the sky and saw a darkening sky hovering over the ocean. He walked forward and slung an arm around Camie's shoulders.

"I was thinking about taking a ride on the Ferris Wheel now. You want to join me, Camie?"

"Yes! I love the Ferris Wheel!"

"You coming too Zoro?"

"I'm not afraid of heights, shit-cook."

"You too, Luffy?" The man in question shook his head.

"No, I still haven't hit the Cajun Catfish stand yet. Or the Fried Oreo stand. I'll catch you later."

"Alright then. Try not to eat yourself into a food coma again."

* * *

Zoro Roronoa was _not _happy. Nor was he afraid of heights. Or lightening.

He may have felt a tad uneasy being up so high in the middle of a thunderstorm though.

"Oh, gee, what bad timing. They can't restart the ride until the storm passes. It should only be a few more minutes though." Sanji smirked at Zoro, his arm around Camie. The young girl had abandoned her window seat when the ride stopped in favor of burying her face in Sanji's shoulder in an attempt to block out the thunder. Zoro was sitting on the other side, arms crossed, definitely _not_ scared.

"You scared Zoro?"

"No!" Another crash of thunder sounded loud enough to shake the ride. Zoro shivered while Camie made a noise and snuggled closer to Sanji, who tightened his grip on Camie, eyes never leaving Zoro.

"The ride was shaking!" Zoro snapped. "Even _you_ were probably freaked a little!"

"I spent most of my childhood at sea. Thunderstorms like this and shaking rides are like nothing." He turned towards Camie, his voice significantly gentler. "Are you alright, Camie?" She managed a nod. "I'm sorry; I should have seen this storm coming…"

"Yeah, I bet you did!" Zoro snapped back, patience for his blonde roommate completely gone. "You probably set the whole thing up so that we got _caught_ on the ride during the storm! All so you could comfort Camie and get back at me for following you around!"

Sanji's glare intensified. "I wouldn't dare consider discomforting someone as lovely as Camie simply to get back at you!"

"So what? You just didn't take her reaction into your messed up equation?" Sanji looked away. "That's it isn't it? You completely disregarded her feelings in order to get back at me! Isn't that even worse than what I said?" Zoro's smug grin at this realization was quickly wiped away by the next rumble of thunder through the sky.

"Yeah, well, maybe if you weren't dishing out embarrassing details that I _trust_ you _as my friend_ to not just tell people!" Another crash of thunder.

"Maybe if you didn't _drag_ me _on my day off_ to some place I didn't want to go!" BOOM!

"You were having fun! Or you would have if you got that stick out of your ass! And maybe if you didn't send the Obnoxious Trio to wake me up this morning after working until 5 AM last night!" CRASH BOOM!

"Yeah well maybe you…shouldn't have…been…sleeping…" Zoro at back and crossed his arms in defeat. Another crash of thunder sent another shiver through his body.

Sanji sighed. "This is the part where you apologize so we can stop playing cheap cards to get back at each other for stupid things."

"I'm sorry I had those idiots wake you up this morning." Zoro muttered.

"I'm sorry I dragged you to the aquarium on your day off despite the fact you were having a good time."

"I'm sorry I tried to ruin your outing with Camie."

"And I'm sorry I tricked you on the Ferris Wheel in the middle of a thunderstorm. And I'm very sorry you got caught up in the middle of this, Camie. Zoro's right; I'm a jerk for not taking you into account here."

"N-no, it's fine." Camie muttered into his shoulder. "I…would have ridden it anyway. It's better that you're here." More thunder had Camie snuggling closer and Zoro shivering.

"Do you want to cuddle to Zoro? It might help." Sanji teased.

"Shut up!"

A few minutes later the storm passed and the ride was moving again. Zoro, Sanji, and Camie were ushered off of the wheel.

"CAAAAMIEEEEE!!" an extremely annoying voice shouted. The voice apparently belonged to a short man with red hair and a weird cap who was standing next to a large man with pointed grey hair who looked kind of like an octopus.

Camie smiled. "Pappagu, Hachi!" She rushed forward and was quickly lost in the octo-man's embrace.

"Camie," the octo-man who turned out to be Hachi said, "we were so worried about you."

"You hadn't showed up at the takoyaki stand yet, so we assumed you were on the Ferris Wheel, and in this storm…" the short man called Pappagu covered his eyes with his arm to hid his manly tears.

"It's okay; I was with some friends I met at the aquarium today." She turned and gestured over to where Zoro and Sanji were standing awkwardly. "Hachi, Pappagu, met Sanji and Zoro. Sanji, Zoro, Hachi and Pappagu. Pappagu is my senior at the designer company where I work, and Hachi is our friend who owns the takoyaki stand where I also work part-time."

"You work as a designer?" Zoro asked. "So, why do you work at the aquarium?"

"I like the fish. Plus I'm still in school, so I kind of need the money."

"What about the takoyaki stand? Hachi here your boyfriend or something?"

Camie blushed at least three shades of red. "Wh-what?! No no no! We…we're just friends that's all!"

Sanji smiled understandingly and lit his cigarette. "I'm just glad to have been of service to a lovely gem such as yourself. I leave you with your friends, my dear."

"What, you're leaving already? You haven't tasted the takoyaki yet!"

"I'm sure anything that you have helped create would taste exceptional, but I'm afraid me and my comrade here really must be off. Luffy has probably eaten half the Festival by now, and we really must find him." He took her hand and kissed the back of it, eyes never leaving Hachi's. "Till we meet again, darling." He turned to leave. Zoro gave a wave and followed.

"You know," Zoro said when they were far enough away so the three of them couldn't hear them, "if he never makes a move…"

"It wouldn't matter. She clearly wants him, even if neither of them realizes it yet. I was just giving him some…initiative, so to speak."

"You do know that you basically just lost to a guy that looks like a fish right?"

Sanji ground on his cigarette. "I am aware of that! Are you trying to completely obliterate my self-esteem?"

"Well, you'd be a lot easier to live with," Sanji kicked his lower back, which Zoro ignored, "but you'd be a lot less fun to mess with."

"Damn right!" Zoro snickered. There was a crash somewhere in the distance and a shout of, "BUT IT SAYS ALL YOU CAN EAT!!" which caused the two men to sigh. They both simultaneously altered their course to the crash-site in order to pick up their Luffy.


	15. Lola

**Contrary to popular belief, I am not dead. Nor have I forgotten this. I did, however, bag myself a summer job that is eating my soul as we speak. So I've been busy. Sorry.**

**I have decided to celebrate my birthday like a hobbit and give you patient peoples the gift of the Lola date, as requested by Krentnebol! Happy birthday to me! Next up is Shakky.  
**

**Reviews:**

**ohlordies: **Aw, thank you! I try, I try.

**debuzz: **No, they don't. But it's a good thing. He really should, he'll eat us all into oblivion! Apocalypse is upon us!

**Shaolin Queen: **Thank you for the kind words! Oh dear, you're tempting my inner Zosan fangirl again. Sorry for the wait!

**dandy wonderous: **It is, it really is. :P Several someones, to be more specific. Thank you! And wins all around!

**CLuMsyBUtNOtAThESaMETImE: **Thank you very much! It is, though, it really is. :)

**PiratesLife4Me02: **Thank you very much!

**kingston: **Thank you! And you're welcome!

**Lord Alania: **Thank you! Sanji's chivalry always amazes me too. I've got some plans for Robin, though I'm a natural Sanji x Nami fan at heart, so I might just leave that until the end.

**Friends-Only-yaoi: **Thank you so much! Really? But Frobin is so awesome! I should put Ace in here more, but he's so hard to write! They are, they really are. Magic? A voice in my head that tells me what to write? Pick a theory that makes me sound less crazy. :P A lot of people seem to think that. I don't know why, but people seem to hate Zotash too. Makes no sense. Of course not. I love him to death, but the man is made of fail. Quite the opposite actually. I just do these things _because_ I love him. _U No, it doesn't. :P Meh, maybe I'll do a short later or something. He is, isn't he? Sorry for the wait. I am now! ;)

**As always, I am not awesome enough to actually own any of these characters. Except that waitress. **

**And now on with the show!**

* * *

Zoro yawned and sat down at the counter while Sanji made breakfast.

"Morning!" the chef said placing a taylor ham, egg, and cheese sandwich on a bagel and a cup of coffee in front of his roommate.

"Morning." Zoro responded. "You're awfully chipper this morning."

"I had to wake up early so I could start making that," he gestured towards the oven where some kind of soufflé was already baking, "so I'm wide awake now."

"Is that what's stinking up the place?" Zoro took bite out of his sandwich. "What's it for anyway?"

"The lovely Miss Nami has requested a chocolate soufflé from me! And how could I possibly say no to such a wonderful women?"

"Did you even bother to ask why she wanted you to wake up at an ungodly hour to make her some damn dessert?"

"I'm sure she has a good reason…"

Zoro sighed and took a sip of his coffee, only to spit it a moment later when a shout of "ZORO RORONOA!!" rang throughout the building.

"Shit!" He dived across the counter and ducked on the other side. "I'm not here."

"Wait, what-" was all Sanji was able get out before the door was shoved open and a fat women with her pink hair done in two braided pigtails wearing what appeared to be a ratty red jacket over jeans and a yellow t-shirt came running into the apartment.

"I thought I locked that door…" Sanji mused aloud. Zoro smacked his forehead.

"ZORO! Oh, you're not Zoro." The women said as she caught sight of Sanji.

"Uh, no I'm not."

"You're cute though. Wanna marry me?"

"Sorry. I'm afraid of commitment." He shrugged.

"All the good ones are." She sighed. "Oh well. Have you seen Zoro? He lives around here somewhere…"

Sanji glanced down at the green-haired man who looked up pleadingly at him, silently begging him not to give away his location. The blonde raised an eyebrow as if to ask '_What's in it for me?_'

His roommate thought about it for a moment before giving him the widest puppy-dog eyes he could muster as if to respond '_My eternal gratitude._'

The chef gave a look that clearly stated '_The puppy-dog look doesn't suite you at all,_' to which the swordsman glared to say '_What if I promised not to kill you?_'

This only caused the blonde to sport a cocky grin saying '_Like you could take me'_ to which the green-haired man snarled before shaking his head in defeat.

He then gestured towards the sink full of dirty dishes and the garbage as if to say '_What if I did the dishes and took out the garbage?_'

The blonde thought about it for a moment and subtly pointed towards the bathroom as if to add '_And clean the bathroom?_'

His roommate shot him a disgusted look before nodding in agreement. Sanji smirked and held up two fingers to indicate the amount of time, to which Zoro responded by holding up seven as if to ask '_For two weeks, right?_'

The cook shook his head, saying, '_No stupid. Two months._'

His green-haired roommate shot him a look that said '_You're so very lucky I'm in a tight spot right now or else there would be no way you'd get away with something like that,_' to which the blonde nodded and turned to face the intruder.

"Zoro? Never heard of him. Are you sure you have the right address?"

"I think so. Brooke said the building was around here somewhere, and the transvestite I met on the way up said he lived in this apartment."

_Brooke…Bon…you are so dead!_ Zoro thought.

"Well I've never heard him. Are you positive it was _this_ building and _this _apartment?"

"I guess not." She sighed again. "He was supposed to take me out to lunch too. Oh well. You can take me instead."

"Pardon?"

"Yeah, you're cute, so you can take me instead. I'll meet you outside of your building at noon okay?" And with that she left.

"Finally! I thought she'd never leave." Zoro said as he made to climb back over the counter. Sanji helped to speed this up by kicking him over instead.

"What the hell was that all about?!"

"Her name is Lola." Zoro responded after he resituated himself at the counter. "She's been showing up at the dojo lately and asking every male there to marry her. Everyone's said no already, so she's just been practicing her swordsmanship. She's not that bad," he took a sip of coffee, "of course, I'm better, so she's been kinda stalking me lately. Brooke's been finding it hilarious, but I didn't think he'd ever actually give her my address." he shrugged. "I guess it doesn't really matter cause she's into you now."

"I don't want her to be into me! I can't blame her, I mean I _am_ a sexy piece of man meat and a much better catch than you are, but I would still like to have some say in these things!"

"Well, you're the one who's always complaining about-"

"This doesn't count as a set-up!" Sanji slammed his head on the counter and groaned. At that moment the oven timer went off, so the down-trodden chef went over to it, took out the soufflé and placed it on top of the stove.

"What will Nami say if she finds out about this?"

"Um, laugh? Or charge you some kind of misery fee. It's not like the two of you are together or anything."

"Yet." He turned back to face his roommate and lit a cigarette. "I think I'm slowly wearing her down."

"I think you're delusional."

Sanji ignored him and exhaled smoke towards the ceiling. "I'm going to have to let Miss Lola down gently though. Any suggestions?"

"Run. Run far, far away." Sanji crossed over to the other side of the counter and kicked him in the head.

"That's no way to treat a lady!"

"Then it's your problem. Don't come home complaining to me." He continued to eat his breakfast. Sanji sighed and joined him.

* * *

Sanji peeked through the glass doors the lead to outside of his building praying to whatever gods did or did not exist that Lola found someone else to bug. The gods, however, must have decided to spite the young blonde, as Lola was standing right outside the door waiting for him. Sanji sighed, straightened his grey-striped tie, pushed open the doors and headed out.

Lola immediately attached herself to him as soon as he appeared on the sidewalk. "It's Sanji right? Brooke told me about you."

"You know Brooke huh?"

"Yeah through a cousin's brother's friend's roommate's distant relative or something." She proceeded to drag her captive down the street. "I have the whole afternoon planned out already though, so no worries there!"

"Oh joy." Sanji really did try to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. "Listen, Lola right? I don't know what you think this is, but…"

"Here we are!" Lola jerked Sanji to a stop outside of a café that Sanji had stopped in a few times before when he was out with Nami or Robin or Vivi or any combination of the three.

"We're having lunch here?" Sanji asked.

"Yeah. My Mama knows the owner a bit."

"Really?"

"Yup. Mama knows people…" Sanji had a strange feeling there was more to that statement but shrugged it off.

Lola directed Sanji to a seat at one of the outdoor tables. He sat down without complaint and perused the menu that was sitting there. Lola sat across from him and picked up another menu. After a few seconds however, she promptly placed it back on the table and proceeded to stare right at Sanji. He blushed at the sudden and direct attention to his person and held the menu in front of his face in an attempt to hide.

"How does it do that?" She asked suddenly.

Sanji looked up and blinked at her. "How does what do what?"

"Your eyebrow. I don't know if you know this, but it's really curly."

"Yeah…I'm aware of it. It's genetic. It just does that."

"…That's really weird."

"Yeah, well-"

"But it's cute. I like it."

Sanji self-consciously traced the outline of his eyebrow swirl. "Uh…thanks." He promptly picked up his menu again. There was only so long he could feign deciding on something to order though (he already knew this place served a pretty good Sierra Turkey sandwich that went well with tea) and eventually he had to put the menu down and address the situation at hand.

"Listen, Lola, I don't know what you expect to come from this, but-"

"Namizou?! Is that you over there?" Lola ignored Sanji in favor of shouting to another table behind him. The blonde cook turned around to see who she was talking about and found no one other than his lovely Nami and her equally lovely sister.

"Lola? Is that really you?" Nami exchanged a few brief words with Nojiko before getting up and coming on over to their table. Sanji grabbed for the menu to hide behind again. "Lola! It's been too long!"

"Much too long! Why don't you and your sister join us for lunch? There's plenty of room here."

"Of course! Is that alright with you Sanji?" Sanji lowered the menu from his face so he could look at her.

"Why would it bother me to have two more divine angels join us?"

Nami grinned. "Perfect." She waved over to Nojiko and pulled up two more chairs from unoccupied tables nearby before both of them sat down.

"Hey Sanji," Nojiko greeted as she sat down, "long time no see."

"It has been far too long my darling Nojiko Swan. How is everythin-" Sanji was cut off by a sudden kick to his leg. He glanced across the table to see Lola talking to Nami as if nothing had happened.

"It's been good. I've actually started seeing this guy Vivi introduced me to."

"Really? Well I hope he's treating you well. I'd have to beat him to a bloody pulp otherwise." Nojiko laughed at that.

"Don't encourage him," Nami added, "He'll actually do it."

"Nami, my love, I was just joking…kind of." The cute waitress chose to make her appearance as a second kick connected with Sanji's leg under the table. She took their orders and came back not five minutes later with their drinks. Sanji took a sip of his tea as she was walking away, taking careful note of her delicate curves which were in all the right places. This earned him a third kick to the shin.

"So, Lola, what brings you and Sanji out here?" Nami asked innocently. Lola wasted no time in retelling the tale of everything that had occurred that morning.

"With all of that going on, I wonder if Mr. Sanji here managed to finish your soufflé, Nami." Said women gasped.

"That's right! Sanji I need that! Please tell me you finished!"

"Have I ever disappointed you my dear? It's done, don't worry. You can go pick it up at any time."

Nami sighed. "Please don't tell me you left it with that roommate of yours…"

Sanji waved that fact away as the waitress returned with their food. "You know he doesn't like chocolate."

"No but some of his straw hatted friends will eat anything in sight."

"Well, it's a good thing my roommate isn't Luffy then, isn't it, Nami Swan? You can go over and pick it up whenever you want. Of course, sooner would always be better." He took a bite of food.

"I suppose so." She started eating too.

"Hey," Lola interrupted, "I didn't see any roommate when I was at your place before."

"That is simply because he is a lazy, incompetent shithead who was fast asleep at the time. No need to worry much about him my dear." The meal was finished with usual talk of this and that. When the cute waitress took their plates away and handed Sanji the bill, Nami and Nojiko decided to take their leave.

"Thanks for lunch Sanji." Nojiko said while grabbing her bags.

"Yeah, you're a real prince sometimes." Nami winked at him while his heart all but melted. "It was lovely seeing you again Lola. I hope you and Sanji have fun with the rest of your day."

"Of course Namizou. I hope you manage to get your soufflé."

"It'll be fine I'm sure. Sanji Blackleg never disappoints a lady, after all." With one final wink at Sanji, the sisters departed.

"So, now what?" Lola asked.

* * *

Sanji wasn't sure if it was his own messed up chivalry, Nami's parting words, or a combination of the two, but he ended up spending the rest of the day with Lola.

He now found himself at the pier watching the sun set with her.

"Sanji," she started, "thanks for coming out with me today."

"It was nothing, really."

"I know I forced this upon you and everything, but still, thanks." She sighed. "The truth is, however, my heart already belongs to another."

Sanji inwardly sighed a sigh of relief. Outwardly he said, "That Zoro guy huh?"

She shook her head. "No, not him."

"Who is it then? Maybe I can help you."

"Well, his name is-"

"Sanji Blackleg!" Said man turned to face none other than…

"Absalom Moria."

"Eh? Do you know him?" Lola turned to face her love.

"LOLA?! What are you doing out here with the trash?"

"Absalom! You came here to find me! You must really love me after all."

"Hell no! An ugly pig like you deserves an incompetent ass like-" Absalom never actually finished that sentence, as a foot connected with his jaw just then, completely shattering it.

"Under _no_ circumstances is that an _acceptable_ way to address a lady, you perverted ero-beast." Sanji took this opportunity to toss his almost-out cigarette on his fallen opponent.

"He's mafia you know, you're probably going to get into some trouble."

Sanji shrugged. "How bad could it be?"

* * *

Zoro's head ached. He forgot Nami could hit that hard. It wasn't his fault really; Usopp and Luffy are the ones who had eaten her soufflé. The stupid cook could just whip up another one when he got back. Where was he anyway?

As if powered by his thoughts, _Loser_ by Beck started to play from his cell phone.

"Where are you?" Zoro shouted through the background noise of Nami yelling at Usopp and Luffy and their subsequent screams. "Nami needs another soufflé…I have no idea why though."

"_Probably because you let Luffy or someone eat the first one. Anyway, Chopper won't let me go unless you come and pick me up._"

"Wait, why are you at the hospital?" The background noise shut up.

"_I'm fine really, it's just-_"

"_You are not fine!"_ Zoro heard Chopper shout. "_Most of your ribs are cracked and I'm pretty sure your foot is broken!"_

"_It's nothing, really, I'm fine."_ There was some struggling and shouts of _'Give me the phone'_ from Chopper and _'Leggo, I'm fine'_ from Sanji.

"_Zoro,"_ Chopper had apparently won the fight for the phone. _"Can you please come and pick Sanji up?"_

"What happened?"

"_Apparently some mob guys tried to beat him up. There are about fifty of them here too, but most of them were taken to a private hospital."_

"Was-"

"_Yeah, Absalom apparently started it. No one's pressing charges though, so, just come get him."_

"Yeah, I'll be right there." He hung up the phone and made his way to the door.

"M'going to get him so he can make your damn soufflé. Just hang tight for a bit."

"Zoro," Luffy said. Zoro stopped and turned to face him. "He'll be fine."

Zoro smiled at his friend. "Yeah, I know."

* * *

"If you think this is bad you should see the other guys."

"I _did_ see the other guys. Nice job, by the way."

"Thanks."

They were driving back in Zoro's car, Sanji's booted foot resting on the dashboard, one arm wrapped around his bandaged ribs, face swollen almost unrecognizably. His arms and hands, however, managed to come out completely unharmed.

"What happened to Lola?"

"She helped fight off the first wave, but when the other guys showed up, I told her to get out of there."

They pulled up to their building and walked up to their apartment, Sanji refusing any help at walking or standing on the way. When they got through the door, Sanji immediately got all of the air squeezed out of his lungs.

"SAANJII! You're alive!" Usopp shouted. Luffy just squeezed him tighter.

"Of course I'm alive! It's going to take more than a hundred and thirty guys to take me down."

"Well, I wasn't worried. I once took down five-thousand armed mobsters with nothing but my pinky finger, you know."

"Nami was worried too." Luffy pulled back enough to say.

"I-I just wanted my soufflé done! I do need it by tomorrow. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you're okay, but it wasn't like I was _worried_ or anything-"

"You seem to be babbling a lot." Zoro commented. Nami punched him in the head.

"Never fear, my love! I will defiantly have it ready tomorrow. I can cook it now if you want."

"Sleep first. Love slaving later." Zoro grabbed his roommate by his waist and dragged him to his room.

"OW! Bastard! Watch the ribs!"


	16. Shakky

**I'm sorry after such a long wait I can only give you this. Shakky just doesn't want to be written in character. This makes her both awesome yet frustrating at the same time.**

**I actually meant to get this up before I left for band camp, so fail on my part. :(**

**So here's Shakky as requested by Krentenbol. Hancock's next I believe. That should be fun. (Is not a big Boa fan.)  
**

**Enjoy.  
**

**Reviews:**

**aznillusion183: **They do don't they? Sanji must be rubbing off on him XP. Thank you very much and I'm glad you enjoyed!

**dandy wonderous: **It does. Sometimes its like they live in each other's heads. Or something. He is, he really is. 3 We spite because we care damnit! Yeah seriously, who does that? :P They do don't they? For some odd reason I associate Sanji getting hurt with piers...weird. Of course! They're everywhere if you want them to be ;). Thank you!

**Krentenbol: **Thank you very much! Yeah, she's like that, and he's like that, so it works. Yup, it's true: I ship SaNa when I can. There I said it. Of course!

**PersonOfDeath02: **Thank you! Yes, I do love me some ZoSan, in whatever form I can get it.

**Amethyst Turtule: **Thank you very much! She scares me too. Added to my list! :)

**ReadR: **But now you just have more to read! Thank you! Yes he's a dear isn't he? I guess we'll see next chapter. ;p He's just awesome like that. Sorry I've kept you waiting.

**Kiwigirl89: **Thank you very much! I'm glad you've been liking it. Yeah, he's probably the best original character I've ever made. XP There's list in my profile actually, so you can check there. I keep moving her down though...

**debuzz: **Thank you! :) Those two are so alike they just have to hate each other. I hope I didn't disappoint. He is isn't he? 3

**Abra Cadaverous: **Thank you! Really? Well at least someone does. XP

**OnePieceIsGod: **Thanks I'm glad you like it so far!

**And WE'VE REACHED 100 REVIEWS!! Yey us! Drinks all around!  
**

**And I don't own One Piece.  
**

* * *

"Cheers!" Luffy shouted, tossing his mug in the air. Nami swiftly punched him in the head.

"We can't start yet! We're still waiting on your brother and Brooke!"

Luffy rubbed his head. "Aw…but I'm hungry now." This earned him a kick in the back from Sanji.

"And you'll still be hungry in five minutes when they get here!" he shouted.

This morning when Luffy had burst into Sanji and Zoro's apartment proclaiming that today was a good day to have a BBQ party, Sanji had expected mass confusion, chaos, and a few explosions. Fortunately Robin was smart enough to have already had such an event planned out so far as to even have a small picnic area reserved for them, so there were fewer explosions. Apparently Ace was working late tonight and Brooke already had plans with a friend, so it was a bit more complicated for them to work the last minute rendezvous into their schedule.

"What's taking them so long? I'm huuuuuuuuuuuuungry."

"Maybe next time you should PLAN THESE THINGS IN ADVANCE THEN!" Nami shouted.

"3 ~Nami Swan's shouting voice is lovely too~ 3!!"

"Can you stop being an idiot for five seconds and help me guard the food love-cook!" Zoro shouted.

"After you shit-head." Needless to say, a fight broke out.

"Luffy stop! We need to wait for Ace and Brooke!" Usopp said as he held his roommate back from attacking the piles of food on the table.

"Yohoho! Were you all waiting for us long?"

"Brooke! You're here! Let's eat!" This time it was Franky's fist that dealt the blow.

"We still have to wait for Ace!"

"Mr. Musician, who is your intriguing friend?" Robin asked.

"Oh, yes, this is my old friend, Shakky. Of course, I'm much older than her! Yohoho!"

Shakky stepped forward and took a drag from her cigarette. "It's very nice to meet you all."

"Ah, nice to meet you too, Brooke's friend. Let's eat." Luffy said hastily before attempting to attack the meat again.

"Hey, don't you own that bar down the road?" Zoro asked.

"Of course the only way you'd be able to remember such a lovely face is if you were drowning yourself with booze." Zoro chose this moment to chuck the nearest object (which happened to be Chopper) at his roommate. Luckily for the small doctor, Sanji was able to catch him and put him down unscathed.

"Sorry Chopper…" Zoro apologized.

"Yes, I do own, operate, and tend my own bar. I also recognize you, Mr. Roronoa. I kicked you out last week because you couldn't pay your tab." This earned Zoro a swift kick to the head.

"Why wouldn't you pay her back?!"

"You wouldn't give me the money!"

"You have your own damn money!"

"Yeah, but I'd rather use yours." A fight broke out. The party's guests felt it was best just to let them sort it out on their own.

"So, Shakky, you own your own business? That _very_ interesting." Nami said. Shakky laughed.

"Not really. Just a bunch of drunks and freeloaders. I know you're trying to start your own business, but bar tending's not really for you. Too many unpaid debts."

"Well, I was just…wait, how did you know I wanted to start my own business?" Nami asked curiously.

"She must be some kind of psychic!" Usopp exclaimed.

"Really? Can you see into the future too?" Chopper asked. Both of them got a fist to the head.

"What was that for?"

"Nami's mean…"

Shakky chuckled. "You can learn anything if you know the right people. Weatheria's very disappointed that you're considering leaving."

"It's not that I don't like them, it's just that they have no idea what they're doing." Nami remarked.

"So, what, you just like to know random stuff about people? What are you, some kind of stalker?" Franky asked.

"Yohoho! It's not like that at all. Well, maybe a little. Shakky just pays close attention is all."

"You can't deny the fact that knowledge is power right? After all, you're engaged to the head of the History Museum."

"What?! Franky you're getting married?!" Luffy shouted. "Does Robin know?"

"She's the one I'm marrying, you idiot!"

"Oh, that's good then."

"Franky…" The large man turned downwards to face the teary eyed doctor. "Why wouldn't you tell us? Are we not invited? Did we make you mad?"

"No, of course not! We were actually going to tell you today."

"Then…how did Brooke's friend find out first?" Usopp asked.

Franky sighed. "I have no idea. Maybe she really is psychic. After all the only other person who knew that Robin and I were engaged was Brooke, and-" he stopped, turned to face the musician friend, and lowered his sunglasses as if to give him a five-second head start.

"Yohoho! It just slipped out I swear!" Brooke shouted over his shoulder as Franky chased him around the clearing.

"I'll kill your boney little ass!" Zoro and Sanji took this as a cue to rejoin the rest of the group.

"So what," Zoro asked, "do you have dirt on all of us or something?"

She chuckled. "You know what they say, Mr. Roronoa, knowledge is power."

* * *

Ace managed to get a hold of Luffy and tell him that he was going to arrive later than expected due to an emergency at work. Chopper, Usopp, and Brooke (once they managed to save him from Franky) were assigned to 'stopping-Luffy-from-eating-the-food-until-Ace-gets-here' duty. Meanwhile Nami and Robin were off in their own little world discussing wedding plans, Franky and Zoro were in the middle of an intense arm wrestling competition, and Sanji was getting to know Shakky a little better.

As it turned out, she already knew a lot about him from reviews of the Baratie that she had read in the paper, and was sincerely interested in his help for devising a proper menu for her bar.

Actually, they were hitting off rather well. Shakky seemed generally interested in Sanji and who was Sanji to not jump at an opportunity like this?

"You know, my dear, if you'd like, we could pick up this conversation in a more private setting."

She took a drag of her cigarette. "You mean leave the party? Or perhaps you're implying something afterwards, Mr. Blackleg?"

"Whatever would suite your tastes best, Mademoiselle."

She thought about it for a bit. "I don't see why not. But you are kind of cute for a kid. I'm afraid my husband might get a bit jealous."

Sanji choked on his drink. He coughed a bit before stuttering out, "H-husband?"

"Yes. We're not into big flashy things like rings and such, but still, Silvers is rather sweet."

"You're married to Slivers Rayleigh? Master business tycoon and partner to the late Roger Gol?"

She chuckled at that. "So the younger generations still talk about him, hm? Yes, that's the one, though he's very much retired from that line of work now."

It was at this point that Ace chose to make his appearance, accompanied by a slim, blonde man with a head shaped like a pineapple.

"Sorry I'm late guys! You don't mind that I brought a friend do you? Luffy, you remember Marco?"

"Yeah, Pineapple head."

"Marco." The man with the pineapple head corrected.

"But more importantly," Luffy continued ignoring Marco, "now that you're here we can eat!"

"Acey kid, it's been a while." Shakky stood; leaving Sanji still stunned where they were sitting, and walked over to greet Ace. His manner changed instantly from relaxing to grim.

"Shakuyaku. I didn't know you were going to be here."

"Mm." Luffy swallowed before replying, "She's Brooke's old friend. He brought her here. Do you know her or something?"

"You could say that."

"I used to work with Acey's father, so I've known him since he was a baby. You've grown quite a bit since then."

"That doesn't really matter though right?" Sanji had finally gotten out of his stupor and rushed to Shakky's side to defend her. Everyone present knew about Ace's relationship with his father and why it was a bad idea to bring it up. "I mean, that was way in the past. That has nothing to do with our BBQ party." Ace shot Sanji a glare that had him shaking in his leather shoes, but he firmly stood his ground nonetheless.

"Sanji's right, Ace." Marco chimed in. "That's all in the past. If she's a friend of Brooke's than there's no reason for us all to relax."

"Pineapple head's got a point." Sanji quickly added when he noticed how Ace had started to calm down.

"_Marco_." Said man corrected.

"Whatever this beautiful gem has done to you in the past shouldn't matter. We can all enjoy the BBQ before Luffy eats it all."

Ace sighed. "You're right. Shakuyaku, I'm sorry for my behavior. Would you please stay and eat with us?"

"I appreciate the offer coming from you Acey, but unfortunately I must be making my leave anyway."

"You're leaving already then, Shakky?" Brooke asked.

"Yes. I'm sorry I couldn't stay longer Brooke. It's been wonderful seeing you again."

"It's always a pleasure seeing you! It would also be a pleasure if I could take a glance at your panties too…" this earned Brooke a swift kick to the head.

"Don't ask classy ladies like Shakky that, shithead! In fact, just don't ask that!" Sanji shouted.

"It's alright, Mr. Blackleg. I wouldn't still be friends with him if I didn't find it amusing." She turned to face Sanji and stroked his cheek. "And I hope you will be able to stop by my establishment sometime so we can continue our discussion."

"Of course!" Sanji replied without a second thought.

With a wink and a few parting words to the rest of the guests, Shakky left the picnic area.

"Y'know, Sanji," Zoro said suddenly after she had departed, "I know you have no dignity when it comes to flirting with women, but a married one? That's probably a new low for you."

"No one asked you Marimo!"

"That coupled with how he was willing to through Mr. Ace to the dogs to defend her actually would make it a new low for him." Robin added.

"R-robin? You're taking his side?"

"Yeah man, have you ever heard of the phrase 'bros before hoes?'" Ace said jokingly slinging his arm around the blonde chef's shoulders. Everyone in the background snickered.

Sanji kicked him upside the head. "No one asked you either Pyro!"

"Well, if you're going to be that way, I'll just go with Marco to a better BBQ then!"

"Please like you could find one better than mine!"

"Marco can cook a mean steak."

"I'd like to see that shitty Pineapple head try!"

"_Marco_. It's not that hard to remember…"

"STAY OUT OF THIS!" Both of them shouted.

"Well, if you really feel that way then go."

"Maybe I will."

"Good."

"Good."

Everyone watched with held breaths while Ace and Sanji turned around to face opposite directions.

"…You know I didn't mean it. Everyone knows you're cooking is the best." Ace said after a while.

"…I really would prefer it if you guys stayed." Sanji replied.

"My god you two are worse than high-schoolers!" Zoro shouted to them. "You're like middle-schoolers!"

"Correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Prince, but it seems to me as if he just went there."

"No, Mr. Spade, it would seem to me that he did indeed just go there."

Zoro took a few steps back. Marco put his hand on his shoulder.

"Now might be a good time to run." He whispered in his ear.

"Yeah thanks, Pineapple head." Zoro bolted in the opposite direction. Ace and Sanji chased him down while everyone else decided their time was better spent prying some food away from Luffy.

"_Marco_. For the love of god, it's Marco." No one paid him any attention.


	17. Hancock

**Really, I should have been studying for my test tomorrow instead, but because I love you all so much (I like to procrastinate) you get this instead. If I fail, I will hunt you all down and do nothing because I am lazy. XP**

**This is the Hancock chapter, as requested by Krentenbol many moons ago. Next up is Robin...or is it? _**

**Reviews:**

**PersonOfDeath02: **Thank you!! Soon enough...maybe. I know!! Isn't he awesome?

**dandy wonderous: **And that is why we love him! Aren't they just adorable though? 3 He deserves it...for something he has no control over. _ He is! I'm glad it didn't turn out to be something lame like _blue_ fire. Marco = awesome!

**Abra Cadaverous: **Yeah, it's pretty tiring being the night. XP She is, just so hard to keep in character. Of course not, he is a gentalman. An awesome one at that! I do...not so much here I don't think (Hancock fan's might have me arse!) but rest assured, I am disliking her the whole time...

**Erase: **Indeed. Thank you very much!!

**debuzz: **Maybe...but it's always nice to hear. :D Yeah, I roll like that. (They just don't know what they're missing...poor souls). Cool, I like writing like that. Thank you! Yeah, I love that show. Apparently I have a thing for cute blondes wearing suits. O_O

**ReadR:** Sorry...it's Marco, btw. They would be the best spy duo the Once Piece world will never see!! They remembered him eventually. It's hard to forget awesome after all. XP Thank you!

**Amethyst Turtle: **Yeah she is! SHHH!! _I was hoping they wouldn't find out!! _ _ _Oh, he'll get his date with Robin, even if I have to kill Franky to make it happen! (I won't end up killing Franky...but rest assured, I do have a plan).

**kingston: **Yes exactly. Wait, what?! Don't worry, he (never) is. :P

**Amywilleat-you: **Oh it's all in good fun! He doesn't mind I don't think. _ Thank you! I did promise a Zoro chapter a while back didn't I? That's coming up soon, I believe. And here it is!!

**lochrann: **Thanks, I'm glad I can entertain. Explaination time: My version of Word has a grammer/usage/spelling checker, so when I used to be extra catious around things like your/you're, there/their/they're and than/then I've become more lax and let the GUS checker deal with it. I really shouldn't but, meh. I'm usually up with these at like, midnight cause that's the only time I can write and yeah, I'm lazy. I'm going to go with Tenacious D's "Tribute" because I like that song. :P Clearly not. XD That was either me having a complete brain fart and forgetting what word I wanted to use or me being tired and picking the wrong word from the spell check. Sorry. Thank you for finding it, though. No it's cool. I like it when people review every chapter as they read through it all. Cool, that means I'm doing my job! :D It's okay, everyone's a little bit nerdy.

**I don't own One Piece of anything, especially One Piece.**

* * *

Zoro tensed when he heard the door opening. He turned slowly swallowing his mouthful as his roommate sauntered into the room.

"I know what this looks like," he said pleadingly, "but I am definitely _not_ eating that fancy roast you had marinating in the fridge for about a week because I most certainly did _not_ have Luffy and Usopp over and they absolutely did _not_ eat everything else in the apartment."

He knew it was futile effort. It always played out the same: After the initial denial came the screaming and the (not all that) false accusations and the kicking which lead to the pain and the fighting back that turned into broken furniture which became more screaming and kicking and fighting back and eventually ended with having to drag the grumpy chef away in a headlock to try and find dinner.

Zoro braced himself for the initial kick…which never came. Instead he was appalled to have a hand gently pat his head.

"It's quite alright my dear Marimo. Food is meant to be eaten after all. We can always go out to eat tonight."

The green haired man was stunned. "What have you been smoking and where can I get some?"

Sanji just laughed. "I can't just be in a good mood without having to resort to drugs now?" He hummed a bit while taking out his cell phone. "If we're going out to eat anyway, we could invite Ace and Brooke then, hm? The more the merrier after all!" Zoro touched the back of his hand to his friend's forehead, face full of concern.

The chef blinked. "Shithead, what are you doing?"

"That's a bit more like him." He removed his hand. "Well, if you're not sick or on drugs, then I gotta assume that you're really just an alien who's killed my best friend and is now wearing his skin and living his life as an attempt to gather information on humans to aid in the upcoming invasion of Earth."

"Or I could be Bon Clay." The blonde replied, smirking at his roommate's antics. "The man is crazy good at impersonating people."

"I think I'd prefer the alien thing. It's less creepy." Sanji chuckled at that before going back to his phone. "Seriously though, why're you in such a good mood?"

"Can't I just enjoy the wonders of life for once without arousing suspicion?"

"No." Zoro thought about it for a bit. "It's a girl of some kind isn't it?"

"My mood doesn't always revolving around the fairer sex!"

"Sure it does. By the way your denying it she must be pretty hot too."

"If you must know, the illustrious Boa Hancock gave us the honor of stopping by today, and gave me the extra honor of accompanying her on an outing tomorrow."

"I knew it was some chick." Zoro leaned against the counter and Sanji counted down in his head. _Three…two…one…_ "Wait, Boa Hancock?! The Boa Hancock? The famous actress who for some reason has been pining after Luffy?"

"The very same!"

"She's the one who hangs around with Mihawk, right?"

"Yes…"

"Can I-"

"No."

"Why not?!"

"Why would you want to come? It's not like Mihawk's coming with us."

Zoro glanced down at the tiles.

"…you thought Mihawk was coming with us."

"He might just pop out of the blue…"

"No."

"C'mon! What if you end up seeing him on the street? He's bound to come over and say 'Hi' or something to Hancock…"

"Mihawk isn't the kind of guy who just says 'Hi'…"

"Then she'll call him over. Same thing."

Sanji put his face in his hands. "You can't come with us."

"Now you're just being selfish."

He shot the swordsman a glare. "Tell you what, if Mihawk does show up out of the blue, then I'll give you a call."

"So are you saying I should stalk you again, cause I think I can fix the strategy from last time…"

"No! Just, whatever. Do what you want." He stormed over to the other side of the counter and started flipping through his contacts.

"You know," Zoro started, "She's probably just using you to get to Luffy…"

"Yeah, probably. If we're inviting people, do you think Nami and Chopper would want to come with us?"

Zoro shrugged. "You're not upset by that?"

"Of course not! She obviously chose me to accompany her due to my drop dead gorgeous looks and winning personality rather than using you or Usopp. And if things go well tomorrow, then maybe I can make her forget about Luffy and fall in love with me instead!"

"Are you sure you're not on drugs?"

"That I know of." He was about to hit send before turning to Zoro and asking, "Where do you want to eat?"

"Pizza's good."

"Pizza it is then."

Zoro smirked. Maybe Luffy-obsessed idols should ask Sanji out more often.

* * *

Sanji arrived at the small garden that Hancock chose as their meeting place. Spotting her he quickly twirled on over and took her hand.

"Bonjour, ma chérie. I see you're looking as riveting as ever!" He brought the hand up to his lips to kiss it, but it was yanked out of his grasp and instead used to slap him across the face.

"Keep your filthy hands off of me you disgusting peon!" Hancock shouted. Sanji blinked, stunned, as she took a step back and said, "Ah, no. That's not right. I meant how do you do Master Chef?"

The blonde jumped right back. "Better than ever! Shall we be off, ma dame?"

She nodded and put a clearly forced smile on her face. Sanji offered his arm to the diva, but she ignored it and took off at a quick pace. He brushed it off and trotted on after her.

"May I inquire as to where we are heading on this beautiful day?" The cook asked.

Boa raised an eyebrow. "Do you wish to know that badly, insignificant whelp?"

Sanji shrugged. "I am a fan of surprises. I can wait until your glorious mind thinks it wise to reveal such trivialities to me."

"We might get alone well after all, commoner."

* * *

"Is this where we're going?"

"Yes, is there a problem peasant?"

"Not at all, ma dame, but I would never have thought of you as much of a meat lover."

Sanji now found himself staring at the fair grounds for the 25th Annual Meat Festival Extravaganza!! and was a bit confused about that. As a chef, he of course had known about it months in advance and was actually considering maybe bringing a straw-hat wielding friend of his tomorrow if said friend behaved himself, but to attend such an event with Bea freaking Hancock…

"You are mistaken…I am a _huge_ fan of meat! I…can never get enough, I love it so much!"

"Okay then…" He offered his arm once more. "Shall we then?" Hancock brushed passed him and entered the fairgrounds. Sanji followed on her heels.

They wandered through the fairgrounds together, Sanji taking in all of the different smells and cuts all the while thinking of ways he could add them to his own recipes and improve upon them. Hancock was forever impatient with this, as every time he would stop at a stand to ask for more information, she would drag him off in a different direction.

"Ma dame, it's great you want to see the fair so much, but do you think we can stop and actually _see_ some of the fair?"

"Mind your own business insolent cur! Ah, I meant, let's go over here now please." She batted her eyelashes at him. "I would really like to go over there now, Master Chef."

Sanji's internal systems shut down for about two seconds due to what could later only be described by doctors as Mellorine Overload. "~3 Of course, ma dame!! Whatever you want!! ~3" After about an hour of this Sanji heard a familiar voice conversing with a not so familiar voice.

"WOAH!! MARGARET!! Did you see the size of that meat?!?!?!"

"Yes, it was rather large wasn't it?"

"Think they'll let me eat it?"

"Um…it looks like it's only for display, Luffy…"

"I'm gonna go eat it!!"

Reflexively, Sanji struck his foot out so it hit Luffy's torso just as he was running by chasing a giant piece of display meat.

"What the hell guy!? Oh, Sanji!" The raven-haired man picked himself up off the ground. "I didn't see you there. Did you see some guy randomly kick me for no reason?"

"No, must have missed him. What are you doing here Luffy? I said I would bring you tomorrow."

"Yeah, but only if I behaved, so Margaret here thought it would be a good idea if we went today so I could get used to it so I won't get kicked out tomorrow."

"You could spend a week at a meat festival and not get used to it…"

"M-miss Hancock!" Margaret exclaimed. "What are brings you here?"

Boa suddenly snatched Sanji's arm before replying, "Why, Master Chef here invited me, so I decide I could honor this festival with my presence. Plus…I love meat…"

"Wah! Sanji!!" Luffy screamed. "You said you would take me!!!"

"I'm still taking you tomorrow! I wouldn't have even come here today if the lovely Miss Hancock hadn't asked me."

"Oh, okay then. So," he continued, not noticing the contradiction between the two accounts, "since you guys are here too, we should see the rest of it together!"

"Yes! Will you join us, Miss Hancock? Mr. Sanji?" Margaret asked shyly.

Sanji was about to agree, but Hancock first said, "Master Chef and I prefer if our own personal alone time was not interrupted since we were just getting to know each other and everything. You understand, right Luffy?"

"Oh, yeah, I get it. It's a mystery date." Luffy shrugged. "I still get to hang out with Sanji tomorrow though, right?"

"Yeah, don't worry. I won't forget."

"Good." He grinned. "See ya later, Hanmock!"

Hancock shyly waved as he grabbed Margaret's hand and dragged her away. The young lady barely had enough time to shout, "Goodbye, Miss Hancock, I'll see you later!" before they were both out of sight.

Boa sighed. "Let's go, mere serf."

"Would it be alright," Sanji asked when they found themselves back at the fair's entrance, "if I went out on a limb here and assume that I was just part of some crazy scheme to attempt to get Luffy jealous after you overheard him and Miss Margaret making plans to come to this thing?"

She blushed. "N-no. It was certainly not like that at all!"

_I'm dead on._ Sanji thought.

"What would you know about it anyway, insolent fool? If you were not the most bearable of Luffy's friends you would not have even had the pleasure of accompanying me on this excursion!" At that moment a limousine pulled up to where they were standing. "I must bid you farewell at this time, Master Chef."

"Adieu, ma dame." Sanji took her hand and, to his surprise, this time she let him kiss it. Immediately afterwards, however, she wiped her hand off with a handkerchief and tossed it aside. "Insolence…" she muttered as she climbed into the limo and had it drive out of sight.

"Well, that sounds like a fail to me if I've ever heard of when, eh Chopperman?"

"It really does, Mr. Marimohead." Sanji turned to see Zoro lower a newspaper to reveal him and Chopper sitting on a bench a few feet away.

"Mr. Bushido! I thought we went over this."

"The kid tells it like it is." Sanji said as he walked over and ruffled Chopper's hair. "And I wouldn't consider that a fail."

"Really? Felt like one from here."

"Clearly, she knew only I with my thoughtless charisma and handsomeness could ever hope to sway a heart as naïve as Luffy's to jealous."

"Or because you're just stupid enough to just go along with whatever she was planning." Sanji's eyebrow twitched at that.

"Sounds right to me." Chopper agreed.

"What are you two even doing here anyway?"

"You said I could do whatever, so I decided to see if Mihawk would show." He grinned, "Told ya I've gotten better."

"He didn't, and I knew you were there the whole time." Zoro grumbled something incomprehensible.

"Zoro said you'd get me a snowcone when you were done." Chopper answered.

"He did, did he? Well then let's go. I know a good place down the street." He offered his hand out to his smaller friend, who eagerly grabbed it as they started walking away from the fairgrounds. Zoro got up and meandered on after them.

"But, how about instead, we let Zoro pay for the snowcones? Since he dragged you out here and all…"

"Yeah! I'd like that even better!" Chopper turned and gave his best puppy-dog eyes to his green friend. "Please…"

"Cook, you're lucky Chopper's too damn cute for his own good…"

"More like I'm lucky you're an idiot." He got a punch to the head for that. Sanji felt it was worth it.

* * *

**French for people who don't know French:**

_Bonjour, ma chérie__- _Hello my dear. (Thanks to Amywilleat-you for correcting that).

_Ma dame- _my lady.


	18. Special: Kuina

**Happy Halloween guys and dolls! As a super special awesome Halloween present, you get the Kuina chapter! Don't you feel special? Robin will be next. Actually...I promised a Zoro special on his birthday, didn't I? That's coming up soon, so that might be next. Robin will defiantly be after that, so feel free to build up your expectations to unreachable levels only to be crushed by my inability to acheive them! **

**Slight ZoroxTashigi warning too, but it's not that much I don't think.  
**

**Enjoy it and have a wonderful razor-and-cyanide free candy fest everyone!**

**Reviews:**

**Abra Cadaverous: **It's cool since I reply to the reviews here. If I didn't you'd be denied the joys of my wonderful answers. XP She's hard, I'm convinced Oda has trouble with her too..._ Of course! :P I know...stupid bitch. I mean wonderful...bitch. He has such a single tract mind. :P She's pretty awesome. I wish she'd stuck around a bit longer. And yet he's still too adorable for mere words to describe. Crazy. Thank you!

**lochrann: **There is a leprachan that I keep as an unpaid servent under my bed. He comes up with ideas in exchange for food and water. Don't tell the Irish Government. _ Thank you and you're welcome!

**ReadR:** Yes, I pity anyone who has to spend time with Hancock (sorry Hancock fans!!). A Sanji harem of hot amazons? He might die of blood loss! I'll toss the idea around, could be interesting. ;)

**Nemrut: **Thank you! Probably because I don't care for her very much...sorry I'll try harder next time. Of course not, this is One Piece (kinda) afterall!

**dandy wonderous: **Now that you mention it, I suppose...still dislike her though. Thanks! I love it when Hancock fails too. Of course, Margaret's awesome! They're pretty cool like that (get it...because of the snowcone...*dodges rotten fruit*). No man or woman within twenty miles is safe...;P

**Lord Alania: **Me neither, but I'm probably thinking about something different. I guess it's just one of those things that people just accept over time (but now that you mention it, that would have been neat...). Maybe. I'm tossing the idea around.

**Amethyst Turtle: **Word. Don't let my Hancock-anti-like get you down. O_O Well, here it is...that wasn't too long, right?

**Amywilleat-you: **Thank you very much! Don't worry, I've still got a few things planned for our friend Sanji. ;) Thanks for that! My experience with the french languages consists of technically three years of high-school, so yeah. Thanks for your help.

**One Piece is owned by not me. Don't want it, don't need it. Well I do...but I don't need to _own_ it.**

* * *

Sanji awoke panting and sweating from a nightmare that he really couldn't remember. He looked around the room, paranoid that whatever was in his dream had somehow materialized itself into the waking world when he spotted a young girl sitting on the end of his bed, wearing a white t-shirt, red shorts, sneakers, a black cape, and vampire teeth.

"Boo." She said upon noticing his wakefulness.

He blinked for a moment before realization hit him. "Kuina, what are you doing here?"

"Zoro sleeps like a log, and you do this twitchy thing when you're asleep that's kind of amusing to watch…"

"I mean here. Y'know…among the living."

The ghost-child bopped the chef on the head. "It's Halloween stupid."

That's right, Sanji remembered now. Back in high school when he had first met Zoro, the green-haired man had explained how his dead girlfriend had won some kind of deal with the devil or something and was allowed to haunt Zoro on her birthday, deathday, and All Hollow's Eve.

"_Not girlfriend," Zoro had insisted, "definitely not girlfriend."_

"Is it really that time again?" he mused.

"Well, it's been Halloween for like, four hours now." Kuina replied, looking at the clock on the nightstand.

Sanji followed her gaze and saw that it was indeed 3AM. Deciding that it probably wasn't worth trying to go back to sleep with her staring at him so he got out of bed, found a shirt, and made his way to the kitchen, Kuina following.

"So, what's for breakfast?" she asked, seating herself at the counter.

"It's three in the morning…"

"Wanna fight for it?" She smirked.

"For what, the meal? Besides, I don't kick girls…and you're a ghost."

"So that just means you can kick me and I won't get hurt. Problem solved."

"No, that means that you'll just be intangible and I couldn't kick you even if I wanted to."

"So you admit defeat? Then get in the kitchen and make me a sandwich!"

Sanji sighed but followed the ghost girl's command and opened the refrigerator to find nothing. Absolutely nothing.

"I think someone had Luffy over and forgot to tell me to restock the fridge…"

"Go easy on Zoro…you know how weak he is."

The blonde sighed, "So true," and walked over to the doorway to grab his jacket. Kuina jumped down from her seat and followed.

"Going out?" she asked.

"Well, it's hard to make a four star breakfast without any food in the apartment…"

"I'll come too."

"You don't have to, you know. You could wait for me here."

"And do what? Zoro's not going to be up until like noon and I'm not much of a finger twiddler."

"Alright, come along if you want to. Just don't complain to me if you get bored."

* * *

So now Sanji found himself walking down the street with his ghostly companion. No one was really up at three in the morning, and those who were weren't likely to raise too many suspicions over seeing a ghost walking down the street, but Kuina still felt the need to close the collar of her cape and wear one of Sanji's long-sleeved shirts to hide the cuts from the accident that took her life.

"No one's going to think you're weak," Sanji had commented, "in fact they probably won't even notice." Kuina had smacked him upside the head and told him to shut up and mind his own business.

"So," Kuina started as they passed by the fourth drunk of the night, "what's new with you?"

"Nothing much really."

"You gotta give me _something_ to work with here! Nothing really happens in the afterlife…it's so boring."

"Well," he searched his mind for some scrap of information that the ghost girl might find interesting, "we got new tablecloths for the Baratie."

"Really? I care so much." She held her hands up in an x shape. "Try again."

"Um…there's a Halloween party at Ace's later…"

"That's more like it. Who's going?"

"Just the usually gang."

"Anyone in this usually gang I don't know about? I haven't been around very much, you know."

"You've known Luffy and Usopp since forever," he started rattling off, "my lovely Nami Swan is going, as well as the equally lovely Robin, and her boyfriend, actually fiancé now, Franky-"

"And you choose to tell me about tablecloths first?" the ghost muttered.

"Anyway," the blonde continued, "Chopper said he's coming, but he also has to work the late shift, so he's not going to be there until around midnight. Brooke's going to be late too; he's playing a gig somewhere. Zoro and I are obviously going…"

"What like together?"

"No! He's bringing Tashigi along!"

"Who?"

"His girlfriend."

"Franky and Robin get engaged, Zoro finally gets a girlfriend, and you choose _tablecloths_ as a discussion point? Seriously, you've got to have something wrong with you."

"Hey, they're very nice tablecloths. And it's been going on and off with those two for a while, so it just slipped my mind."

"Any other relationship developments I should know about? Luffy isn't married to that stalker chick is he?"

"No, but his illegitimate son did pop out of the woodwork last month…" Sanji grinned. Kuina smacked his arm.

"Pineapple-head might be there too. He's a friend of Ace's," he added after seeing the young ghost's confused look. "So, think you want to come?"

"Will Ace allow a twelve-year old at his party?"

"I don't see why not, half of the attendees don't drink anyway. Plus this way you'll actually get to meet everyone."

"Then I guess I'll make an appearance…" she stopped suddenly as Sanji kept walking, causing him to have to pause and turn around.

"What's wrong?" He asked. She was looking in the window of a costume shop that declared in bright neon letters that it was OPEN ALL HALLOWEEN! for tonight only. Kuina grinned a devilish grin before grabbing his arm and tugging him inside.

* * *

They emerged thirty minutes later, Sanji decked out in full cowboy attire.

"Why am I dressed as a cowboy again?" He asked the grinning girl in front of him.

"Because you didn't want to wear the dress…and you said you still needed a costume anyway."

"But…cowboy…" he fiddled with his hat.

"You look fine. I don't see what the big deal is."

They continued walking, either with Sanji updating her on random tidbits and going ons or with their just general bickering (the girl was creepily similar to a certain green-haired roommate…) until they reached the first 24-hour convenience store that the pair came across.

Sanji made to walk inside, but stopped when he realized Kuina wasn't following him.

"Aren't you coming in?" He asked. She glanced at her arms that were covered by the extra-large shirtsleeves. "You'll be fine. No one's going to notice anything."

The small ghost shot him a quick glare. "I know that!" she huffed before passing him and sauntering into the store. "What's taking you so long, slow-poke?"

The blonde chuckled and followed her in.

Ignoring the half-asleep cashier hiding behind a pop-culture magazine, Sanji and Kuina headed straight to the bakery section to pick up a loaf of bread. As the pair made their way to get eggs and stuff, Kuina spotted something in one of the freezers in the back and rushed on over.

"Can we get this too?" She asked, opening the freezer and grabbing Phish Food from its depths.

"I guess," The chef replied, "I may have accidently taken Zoro's card by mistake, so…"

The ghost girl grinned. "In that case, you wanna pick something too?"

"Not particularly, but it's only fair we bring something back for the Marimo." He opened the next freezer and grabbed a fudgecicle to add to their purchases.

"Sanji? What are you doing here?" The man in question turned to find Officer Tashigi standing behind him.

"Ah, Tashigi! You're looking lovely on this wonderful morning!"

"Hardly, I just got off work." She took a sip of the coffee in her hand before noticing Kuina. "Oh, and who's this young lady?"

"Ah, she's…Zoro's cousin…" Sanji stammered out. That was the story they came up with for this kind of situation…right?

"I just flew in from Japan, so my internal clock hasn't set in yet." Kuina came up with quickly. "You can call me Nina."

"Ah, Zoro never mentioned that his cousin was coming in from Japan today…"

"Because he's a forgetful idiot." Sanji supplied. "I even had to go pick up poor Nina from the airport at this ridiculous hour because he's still sleeping." He sighed, "Miss Tashigi, I don't know what you see in that brain-dead roommate of mine…"

She chuckled, "I wouldn't expect you too. But you both look like you're ready for Halloween already."

"She made us stop by the costume store on the way here!" Sanji shouted accusingly.

"Halloween is a big deal for me and you know that!" She shouted back. "Honestly, men…"

"You remind me of myself when I was your age." Tashigi said. "In fact, you look a little like me too." She shrugged. "I'll see you both at Ace's party later, right?"

"Of course Miss Tashigi, I wouldn't miss it for the world!"

"I look forward to it." She waved and left them to their own devices.

"She seems nice." Kuina said after a while, "and her intentions seem good enough. Okay, I approve."

"He doesn't need his dead girlfriend's approval for these things…" Sanji muttered.

"One: it's not like that. Two: I can't really trust your opinion can I?"

"You try to scare them away because you think he's 'just toying with them' or some messed up logic you have and then give him hell when he decides it's not working out for some reason."

"Well I'm right aren't I?" the blonde muttered under his breath. "C'mon let's pay for these and get us some breakfast.

* * *

It was about four by the time they got back to the apartment to find not only was Zoro awake, he was also alert.

"Zoro!" Kuina shouted as she ran over to embrace him. The large man faltered for a bit, caught off guard, but managed to return the embrace.

"What are you doing up?" Sanji asked as he put their purchases down on the counter.

"Bon Clay stopped by to drop off some milk…" Zoro responded, gesturing to the milk on the counter.

"And you couldn't bother to put it in the refrigerator…"

"He also dropped this off…" the green haired main held out a piece of paper. Kuina tried to get a peak at what it was, but before she could Sanji strode over and promptly shoved it in his mouth. The rooms other occupants both blinked simultaneously.

"Was that necessary?" Zoro asked as his roommate shrugged and swallowed the paper.

"What was that?" Kuina asked innocently.

"Nothing." Sanji strode back over to the kitchen area as if what just took place never happened. "So who wants breakfast?"

* * *

And as such the day passed. Sanji and Kuina managed to get Zoro to dress up as a cactus, which coincidentally managed to match Tashigi's flower costume so well it was almost like it was planned, Kuina finally got to meet the rest of Zoro's friends, came to the conclusion that they were all insane, and heartily approved of them all, and Nami looked absolutely adorable in her cat costume, so Sanji considered it a good day all around.

11:55 found Zoro, Kuina, Luffy, and Sanji sitting out back on Ace's patio, listening to the rest of the party going on inside.

"This was a good Halloween," Kuina said suddenly. "It's nice when you let me come out with you."

"You're usually the one that doesn't want me going out…you used to just spend all day fighting me."

"You mean beating you." Luffy corrected.

"I could take you now…you just don't challenge me anymore."

"It'll be embarrassing for a manly man of your age to keep losing to his childhood rival who hasn't aged at all." Kuina said. "I wouldn't want to do that to your ego.

The other three had a laugh at Zoro's expense. "Anyway, thanks for taking care of me today guys."

"Of course!" Luffy exclaimed. "But next time you come back, don't let Sanji hog all your time. We haven't had an eating contest in like forever."

"I guess I'm always up for crushing a new opponent." He grinned at her in a way that she couldn't help but grin right back too.

"Well, it's almost time for me to go…I hope you'll be able to explain my sudden disappearance…"

"You're twelve and it's almost midnight," Zoro scoffed, "it won't be that hard to figure out what happened."

"We'll leave shortly afterwards to keep up appearances." Sanji said.

"Good." She turned abruptly and wrapped her arms around her childhood friend. Without missing a beat Zoro squeezed her right back.

"Till next time, kay?"

"Till then."

"Oh, Sanji," she said, turning to the blonde in question.

"Yes?"

"Thanks for putting up with me today."

"My dear, having a lady like yourself accompany me-"

"Save it for someone who actual cares, Romeo." The small ghost sneered.

"It was nice hanging out with you pipsqueak." Sanji amended.

"That's better." Kuina leaned in and kissed the chef lightly on the cheek. "Till next time…" and with that she was gone.

"What's with you and little girls?" Luffy asked around a bit of some meat product.

"Don't make me sound like a pedo!"

"Well, now that you mention it…" Zoro smirked. Sanji kicked the back of his head from his sitting position.

"Don't you get started on it too!"

"Sanji, are we leaving now? I'm huuuuuungry and Ace banned me from the kitchen…and dining room…and snack table…and emergency provisions…"

"Yeah, let's go." They both stood and waited for their friend to do the same. "You coming Zoro?"

"Nah, I'm going stay here for a bit. You guys go on ahead." He replied, staring at the moon.

"Suite yourself." The two men walked away, the raven-haired one chattering away in the chef's ear the whole time.

Zoro sat out there for about ten minutes until Tashigi came and sat down beside him.

"Where did Luffy and Sanji go?" she asked. "Weren't they with you?"

"Hm? Yeah, but Nina feel asleep, so they volunteered to take her home." The swordsman replied, eyes still focused on the celestial orb.

"You okay? You seem a bit off."

"Just reminiscing I suppose." He turned to face his girlfriend. "Hey Tash, have I ever told you about my friend Kuina…"


	19. Special: Zoro

**Happy November 11! For Poland and Angola, it's Independence Day! For Maldives, it's Republic Day! For most of the world it's Armistice/Veterans/Remembrance Day! And for Japan it's Pocky Day, China has Singles Day today, and in Belgium it's Women's Day. But every One Piece fan out there knows that they're really celebrating Zoro's the end of WWI, but mostly Zoro's birthday.**

**My gift to Zoro is a date with Sanji, because who doesn't want that?**

**I had two options to fit this in the timeline: 1) Make it a proloug of sorts, 2)Make it a 'What if...' after the alternate Tashigi ending. I went with option 1, so please don't kill me.**** This also got a bit out of control lenghtwise. It's 15 pages on word! Why can't I type that much when it counts!? I also kidnapped the Italies from _APH_ to celebrate 91st Anniversery of the end of WWI. Because I'm like that. I don't own them.**

**Enjoy.**

**Reviews:**

**Abra Cadaverous: ***hands tissue.* Thank you! Mr. Phoneix man shows up whenever he can ;). Maybe? I dunno, if it is, it's just my subconcious being awesome. Yes, but we only hate on him because we love him! Amusing image, isn't it? 3

**dandy wonderous: **Good, that was it's purpose! *hands tissue* Sure would make for an interesting chapter. ;) Clearly they just know how awesome he is even at a young age. She's cool like that. They actually prefer her to him. XD For you then, I won't kill her off. :P

**lochrann: **Oh that's good. Now if only he'd give me his Lucky Charms...XD Thank you! Honestly, I put it in there on a whim. I might want to use it later though, but feel free to fill it in with

your mind until that time comes.

**Nemrut: **Thank you very much! That really does mean a lot to me. *likes making people happy*

**Amethyst Turtle: **Thank you! I shall add her to my ever growing list!

**ReadR: **Thank you! Me too, she's cool like that. ;P

**debuzz: **Thank you very much! I try. I might possible have seen that too, but I've got a cowboy thing going right now. I'm glad you can appriciate the awesome that is cowboy!Sanji. It happens, thank you for putting up with it. Your blessings mean a lot. Here's your special!

**Lectori Salutem: **Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it!

**Coldstone288: **Thank you very much! I usually say who's next in the author notes. If not, then there's a list in my profile that I rarely steer away from (these specials being exceptions). It seems that you have stumbled across my plans for my SUPER SECRET SIDE PROJECT!! So yes, yes I have.

**Amywilleat_you: **She's epically cool like that. That could work out well, but he might scar the children for life! O_O And here you are dear, gift wrapped just for you!

**In The Depths of NOTHINGNESS: **Thank you very much! No, you must have missed it somewhere. :P Just for you.

**I do not own One Piece, Axis Powers Hetalia, or any of it's characters or look alikes.**

* * *

"That's cheating!" Zoro protested from his spot on the couch.

"How is that cheating?!" Sanji exclaimed, standing in front of the TV.

"The pin launched itself across the alley and the ball barely touched it! Real world physics say that's impossible! It's madness!"

"Madness? This is Wii Bowling, stupid Marimo." The blonde rolled his eyes at his roommate. "Real world physics don't apply!"

"If Nintendo had any idea what they were doing, they would." The green-haired man muttered.

"You're just upset by my super-amazing-come-from-behind-victory."

"You only won by a point!"

"Considering I was down by a hundred in the sixth frame though... really a very poor showing from you."

"If I had gotten that last pin in the tenth frame…"

"It was the five pin too. You know…the one that's dead center." The cook grinned as he plopped down next to his friend. "Face it: You suck at this game."

"I've already told you, the physics in the game are completely off! Besides, this is coming from the guy who was behind by a hundred points…"

"That was to set up my epic come-from-behind victory. Which was awesome."

"Face it Curly-brow, you lucked out."

"That was all skill and you know it!"

"Please you don't have enough skills to get out of a paper bag." He stretched and got up off the couch. Sanji just stared blankly after him.

"What is that even supposed to mean?" he questioned.

"If you don't know, I ain't telling." Zoro made his way to the doorway and grabbed a jacket. "I've got some time before work. Wanna grab lunch?"

"Sure." The blonde followed his roommate's actions. "But you're paying."

Zoro muttered something unintelligible but didn't dispute it as they made their way into the hall. Just as Sanji was locking the door, Bon Clay burst out of his apartment wearing his tights and spinning

"Hey Bon," Zoro greeted. "Got a show tonight?"

"_Oui oui_! Inazuma should be outside waiting for me to take me to rehearsal as we speak!" His spinning halted. "You boys have any special plans for tonight?"

Sanji shrugged. "Not really. Just going out for some lunch right now, though Zoro's actually paying this time, so that's pretty special."

"Really?" He looked at both of them, sheer delight painted all over his face. "I knew this would happen someday! Your first date!"

"Date?!" Both men shouted at the same time.

"No no no no, Bon, you've got it wrong. It's definitely _not _a date." The blonde corrected. "For starters, he's disgusting and I like girls."

"If I was gay, I'd want a real man, not Miss Prissy OMG-Can't-Leave-Room-Until-Hair-Is-Perfect over here."

"Well, I'd go around looking like something died on my head like you do, but I have this thing called self-respect."

"But…" Bon interrupted what was quickly turning into an all out brawl, "Zoro, dear, you never pay for anything ever if you can avoid it. Therefore it must be a date!"

"Why do I have to be the girl?" Sanji muttered.

"Do you want me to explain the hair thing again?" He turned to his neighbor. "But seriously Bon, it's just lunch between friends. No date. You can come too if you want."

"I can't. I have rehearsal. Plus I wouldn't want to impose on your…not date."

"Don't get any ideas!" The moody chef shouted as he stormed down the stairs. Zoro said a quick good-bye before running after him.

* * *

"The nerve of him! Where does he go off with ideas like me actually considering dating you?!" Sanji ranted as they walked.

"Maybe the fact that you haven't had a steady girlfriend in about three years? How about that you don't leave the apartment anymore except for work or when you're with me, Luffy, or Usopp? He's just worried about your well being."

"Work wears me out! You try pulling twenty hour shifts five days a week and tell me how much time you have for the ladies! And even so, why would I date you?"

"So would you have preferred if Bon thought you were dating Luffy?"

"He's got a pretty slim waist and cute eyes…"

"Are you more upset at the fact that he thought you were dating me rather than the fact that he thought you were gay?"

"Yes."

Zoro rolled his eyes. "I'm out of your league anyway."

"Agreed. I usually don't look down the social ladder for a mate." The blonde smirked.

"You wish." He playfully punched his friend in the shoulder. "Where do you wanna eat?"

He shrugged. "Wherever."

"You're so helpful honey." He glanced around the street and pointed at the first place that looked like it served food. "How about there?"

"Are you crazy? Do you know what they put in their meat sauce!?"

"No." Sanji gave him a look. "You don't have to order the meat sauce!" The look continued. "Fine, we won't eat there!"

"Thank you, darling."

"Where do you want to eat, then?"

"I told you, it doesn't matter."

Zoro was quite close to strangling the blonde right there, and probably would have if he had an alibi and a place to stash the body ready. "How about over there?"

Sanji stopped. "Do you really want to eat there?"

"I don't care where we eat, I just want food. Why, what do they put in there meat sauce?"

"Their meat sauce is fine, exceptional actually."

"Then what's the problem?"

"It's just…well, this place has a reputation of being…romantic…"

"Is this about what Bon said?"

"It's the restaurant's reputation shithead! It would be that way no matter who said what!"

"Well, I'm hungry, we're not madly in love, and you like their meat sauce. I don't see a problem here."

"I…guess…" but Zoro had already pushed his way inside by the time Sanji finished sputtering out his sentence. Sighing in defeat, the chef followed his roommate through the doors.

* * *

"Was that Zoro and Sanji?" Luffy asked.

"Did they just walk into _Veneziano's_?" Robin inquired.

"Dude…what?" Franky intelligently remarked.

"Finally! Don't you see what's going on?" Nami said.

"Must be lunchtime. I'm getting hungry too." Luffy remarked and shifted the bags he was carrying as he sprinted across the street to the restaurant. Nami grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back.

"No! Well, technically yes, but don't you see? Clearly this means that they're finally getting together!"

"You sure about that girlie? I know Sanji's spending a lot of his free time with Zoro, but that doesn't necessarily make them gay."

"Not gay; bi. I've known them for years now and I can sense all of the UST in the air around them! We need to follow them and make sure they don't screw this up." She had a certain golden glint in her eye. "There both idiots, so they're bound to. If we help them then we would deserve a tip, wouldn't we?"

"Does this mean we're getting lunch? If so then I'm on board." Luffy said.

"Yeah, we would have to eat lunch there to check up on him…" The orange-haired girl turned her puppy-dog eyes to Franky. "You can pay for lunch right?"

"I'm already paying for half of this ridiculous shopping spree!" He said waving the bags he was carrying around. "Why should I have to pay for you guys to stalk Zoro and Sanji?"

"It's not stalking, it's helping! _Veneziano's _is known for being a romantic place, so if Robin or I were to walk in without a date, then it would make us laughing stocks."

"Are you saying I have to come too? Forget it! Stalking friends is not super. Plus I'd have to wear pants!"

"We just bought you a pair…please?" Nami tried for the puppy-dog eyes again.

"That doesn't work on me girlie!"

"I'll pay for lunch." Robin interjected. "This could be an interesting venture. Would you like to accompany me, Franky?"

The carpenter blushed. "Yeah…well…if you want me too, I guess…" Robin giggled. Nami muttered something incoherent under her breath about pants. Luffy shouted "LUNCHTIME!" and sprinted across the street.

* * *

"_Ciao_! Welcome to _Veneziano's_!" Zoro and Sanji entered the restaurant and were greeted by the Italian host. He had light brown eyes, dark brown hair with an annoying curl sticking out on the left, and was wearing a black dress shirt with matching slacks and a blue tie. "My name is Feliciano, and I'll be your server. Table for two?"

"We're not together." Sanji felt the need to point out. The host just blinked, confused.

"Someone's secure in his sexuality." Zoro muttered. "Yeah, there are only two of us."

"_Magnifico!_ Follow me please!" He took off through the restaurant like a bundle of pure energy as Zoro and Sanji hurried to keep up.

"Ve~" He exclaimed when they finally caught up with him. They sat down and he handed them the menus. "Here you go!" and with that he headed off to good knows where, leaving the two men alone.

"So what's good?" Zoro asked without even touching the menu.

Sanji already had his open and was pondering the choices. "The pasta here is supposed to be excellent, but I assume you want something with a little more meat, you carnivore?" The green-haired man grunted in agreement. "Lovely. I'm ordering you Veal Parmesan."

"You mean dead baby cow?"

"If you want that image floating through your head when you eat it…"

"Can you order me something that wasn't bred for the sole purpose of killing?"

"Since when did you care about animal rights?"

"I don't."

"Then why are you fighting me on this?"

He shrugged. "It's fun seeing you react."

"You're getting the veal. I'll be referring to it as dead baby cow while you're eating it. You _will_ eat all of it."

Zoro grumbled. Some people just couldn't take a joke.

* * *

Luffy, Nami, Robin, and Franky stood by the host's stand. The restaurant had the feel of Italy, including a fountain, a mural, various forms of Italian plant life, and several paintings that Robin noticed were actually from the Italian Renaissance.

"Makes ya wonder where they get all this stuff…" Franky wondered aloud. Nami snorted.

"Don't bring your _mob_ theories into this!" Franky put his hands up in defense.

"I'm just saying is all…"

"_Ciao_. Welcome to _Veneziano's_." An unenthusiastic voice said. The group turned to the host's stand to find that an Italian man with light brown eyes, dark brown hair with a ridiculous curl on the right side of his head wearing a black shirt with matching slacks and a red tie had appeared behind it. "Can I help you?"

"Table for four, please." Robin asked.

"Of course, my good lady. I'm Lovino, by the way, and I'll be your server." He grabbed four menus from behind the stand. "You two ladies and those jerks can follow me." He sauntered into the seating area with his guests following behind him.

"He seems…familiar. Somehow." Luffy commented.

"No kidding…" Franky muttered.

Lovino lead them to a table that coincidentally gave them a perfect vantage point for observing Zoro and Sanji. Their server pulled out Nami's and Robin's chairs for them and handed them their menus. He chucked Franky's and Luffy's after they seated themselves.

"I'll be back soon to take your orders." With that he left.

"I want food." Luffy exclaimed as soon as he left.

"We have a more important mission than your stomach." Nami hushed him.

"What do you think looks good, Robin?" Franky asked the raven-haired women seated across from him.

"Hm, well, they all look delicious. I've heard this place has quite a way with pasta."

"Zoro and Sanji are in the middle of their first date and all you two can do is talk about the menu!"

"Have you seen this thing though? I think it's lined with real gold here. I'm telling you-"

"If you so much as think the word 'mafia' while we're in here Franky, so help me god…"

* * *

"Have you decided yet?" Feliciano asked as he appeared at their table. "If you haven't I can come back later."

"No, we've got it." Sanji said. "He'll have the veal parmesan and whatever you have on tap." The Italian scribbled the order down.

"That comes with a salad. What kind of dressing do you want?"

"I don't want any salad."

"What?!" Their server put on a face which made Zoro feel like he just kicked the man's puppy. "But it's so good! It complements the veal perfectly!"

"That's what I've been telling him." Sanji sighed. "He wants Italian dressing."

"I don't want any damn salad! No offense." He quickly said to Feliciano.

"_I'll_ eat your salad shithead. My god, it's free food! Why are you turning it down?"

"Ah, that's good then." He scribbled that down. "And for you, ve?"

"I'll have Fettuccini Alfredo and a white wine, please." The blonde said, handing back the menus. The brunette scribbled down his order and grabbed them.

"_Fantastico_. I'll be back soon with your drinks." He went back to the kitchen.

"Did you have to get me a salad?"

"It comes with the meal. I'll be eating it anyway, so you can just be content with your dead baby cow."

"If you keep calling it that then I'm not going to eat it."

"You'll eat it and you'll like it. Learn not to disrespect food shithead."

"Me? You're the one calling it dead baby cow!"

"Only because you started it!"

"You're such a man-child sometimes!"

"Takes one to know one!"

A few seconds of silence passed before both men start cracking up.

* * *

"Look! They're laughing!" Nami squealed.

"So?" Franky said. "Doesn't mean anything."

"It means they aren't trying to kill each other, which means it's a date."

"You're not trying to kill me right now. Doesn't mean we're dating."

"You and I are not Zoro and Sanji. Their relationship dynamic is completely different from ours!"

Franky was about to respond, but at that moment Lovino chose to reappear. "Can I take your orders?"

"I'll have the Lobster Ravioli and water, please." Robin said.

"Same here, but make mine a coke." Lovino glared at his beverage choice but wrote it down anyway.

"I'll have the linguini with pesto and water, please." Nami asked sweetly. The Italian nodded and wrote it down in a frenzy.

"What's pasta fa-ga-i-o-li-a?" Luffy asked.

"Idiot! It's Fa-zool*! Pasta Fagioli! It's not that hard to pronounce correctly!"

"Fagioli looks nothing like Fa-zool." Franky defended. "Honest mistake, chill dude."

"Yeah whatever," Luffy said, "Is it meat?"

"You ungrateful little piece of-"

"Relax, will ya? Unless you're gonna call-OOMPH!" Franky shut up after Nami shove her heel into his ankle.

Lovino was about to respond anyway, but another voice chose that time to called out, "_Fratello_!"

"Feliciano!" The waiter turned around to face his brother.

"You're not supposed to interact with the customers after what happened last time."

"He was asking for it."

"You ran away screaming…and he wasn't even trying to hit you."

Lovino blushed slightly. "Th-that doesn't mean anything! I'm your older brother, don't order me around!"

"_Fratello_, who's going to make the sauce? Please go back to the kitchen." Feliciano gave him his best puppy-eye look. "Remember what Grandpa said?"

Lovino muttered what sounded like several curses in Italian before trudging to the kitchen.

"I wonder if Sanji and Zoro are having this much fun…" Franky said sarcastically.

"Sorry about that. My name is Feliciano, and I'll be your new server. What would you like to order?"

"Two lobster raviolis," Robin recited, "a linguini with pesto, two waters, a coke, and did you want the fagioli, Luffy?"

"I'd rather know what it is."

"Bean soup! With pasta." The waiter answered. "Ah, it's so good…especially for this time of year. It's one of my favorites."

"If it's not meat I don't want it."

"What would you like then?"

"Meat."

"Luffy, be reasonable," Nami said. "This is an Italian restaurant, not a butcher!"

"May I recommend the spaghetti with meat sauce?" The Italian piped in. "He may not seem like it, but Lovino's really got a way with sauces."

"Is there meat?"

"Considering the name contains the phrase, 'meat sauce,' I think you're good on that front, bro." Franky commented.

"K'ay. I'll go with that then. And a fruit juice."

"Excellent choice! I'll be right out with your food. Oh," he looked at them shyly, "I don't mean to pry, but when you mentioned Sanji before, you didn't happen to mean Sanji Blackleg, did you?"

"Yeah dude." The blue haired man point at the chef in questions table. "He's right over there."

"Do you know Mr. Cook, Mr. Waiter?"

"Me? N-not really. I've been to _Baratie_ a few times and I know he's the sous chef there and it's really good, so I was just wondering."

"Well, we're on a secret mission, so don't compromise it!" Nami snapped at the Italian man. "Don't let him know we're here, got it?"

"Aye aye Ma'am!" he stood at attention and saluted with his left hand before bouncing back to the kitchen.

"Cute kid." Nami remarked. "Now where were we…?"

* * *

"You're being ridiculous!" Sanji said, slamming his fist on the table to accentuate his point. "There is no way Batman is capable of beating Spiderman!"

"You're the one being ridiculous." Zoro responded. "Batman has all the cool gadgets and stuff; he could totally take down that stupid spider."

"Please, you don't think Peter comes prepared too?" The blonde leaned back in his chair and shook his head all knowingly. "Face it: Spiderman is everything Batman is except he has superpowers."

"Here are your drinks and salad!" Feliciano showed up then and placed a white wine and salad in front of Sanji and a beer in front of Zoro. "Sorry I took so long. There was an…incident."

"That's fine." The swordsman said as he guzzled down half his drink in one gulp.

"Barbarian…" the chef muttered under his breath.

"Um…" The server hovered around them nervously, "a-are you really Sanji Blackleg?"

"The one and only." He gave a slight bow. His friend rolled his eyes and took a smaller sip of beer.

"Ve…really? I've been to _Baratie_ loads of times! You're cooking is really good!"

Sanji smiled smugly while Zoro asked, "How did you know it was him? You stalking us or something?"

"Eh? Ah, no no no!" Feliciano shook his head and waved his arms franticly. "I don't do that anymore! You're friends told me! They're right over there!" He pointed at the appropriate table.

"What?" Sanji made to turn around but Zoro stopped him with, "Don't. It's them alright."

"Them? Them who?"

"Oh no!" The Italian exclaimed. "I wasn't supposed to tell you that! The orange-haired lady told me not to! She's cute and all, but she's so scary…"

"Nami Swan is here?"

"Don't turn around! I can see them in my peripheral. She's here with Luffy, Robin, and Franky. They're probably following us…or at least Nami is." He shrugged. "Luffy's most likely just here for the food, and Robin and Franky are acting like they're on an actual date."

"I knew this was a bad idea. I'm going to correct their misinterpretations right now!"

"Hold it, shit-cook. Why would you do that?"

"Why wouldn't I? I don't want my precious Nami to think I'm actually with _you_."

"Uh…I'm going to go get your food now…" Feliciano said as he quietly slipped away.

"Well, she shouldn't be following people anyway…"

"What would happen if Nami finds out she was wrong? I have to tell her before her poor little heart is crushed!"

"Why do you want to crush her little heart? Just, play along with their expectations for a bit…"

"Why would I want to do that!?"

"Would you rather just prove your precious Nami Swan wrong?"

"…"

"Didn't think so."

"_Only_ for lunch. We correct these horrible misinterpretations later."

"Agreed. I can't have people think I'm lowering my standards, can I?" He got a kick in the shin for that.

* * *

"Wh-wh-what?!" Nami shouted quietly. "Look look look! They're holding hands! And gazing into each other's eyes lovingly! How can you tell me I'm wrong now, Franky?"

"Well…I mean…just because it _looks_ like they're in love doesn't necessarily mean anything. They might just be putting on a show for us."

"How can they if they don't know we're here?"

"I dunno…that waiter seemed like the kind of guy to crack under pressure. I bet that's how the-WOULD YOU STOP THAT?!"

"I told you not to mention a certain illegal group of people here! Now, back to important matters."

"You mean stalking our friends?" Franky snorted. "Still say it's fake. They were arguing before."

"It's foreplay! Tell him Robin!"

"Here are your drinks!" Feliciano came back and placed the appropriate drinks in front of the appropriate people. "I'll have your food for you in a bit. I know nothing!" He disappeared as fast as he had shown up. Franky gave Nami a meaningful look.

"Ma-"

"Don't mention the mafia!"

* * *

Feliciano had brought the men their food and left in record time. Apparently someone almost burnt the kitchen down making sauce or something.

"How's your dead baby cow?" Sanji asked.

"Delicious. You should make it more often."

"You'll have to go out and slaughter me a dead baby cow first."

"Duly noted. Give me some of your pasta."

"No way. You should have ordered it yourself."

"We're still pretending to be in love or something, so we could do that thing from that movie with the spaghetti."

"This isn't spaghetti, this is fettuccini. And are you talking about _Lady and the Tramp_? You know, the one that ends in a kiss?"

"Yeah, that's it."

"I'm not kissing you!"

"It doesn't have to be a real kiss, just a stage one. For show."

"No. Stay away from my pasta."

Zoro, however, didn't listen, and lunged straight for the blonde's bowl. Sanji tried shielding it with a defensive maneuver that somehow resulted in their lips accidentally touching. In shock, they held that pose for a moment before bolting apart as if struck by lightning.

"That was your fault." Zoro accused.

"Me? You're the one who wanted to pasta kiss!"

"It would have been a stage kiss if you hadn't gotten all defensive over your food."

"Let's just agree to never ever speak of this again ever, shall we?"

"Sounds good to me." They both went back to their respective meals.

* * *

"Did they just kiss?" Nami shouted after swallowing a mouthful of linguini.

"I think you're just seeing what you wanna see, girlie." Franky said after downing his fifth glass of cola.

"Mr. Luffy seems to have gone missing…" Robin noticed. His plate of spaghetti was already finished and his glass of fruit juice was empty. Nami looked down at her plate and noticed that he had also taken the rest of her linguini as well.

"I'm sure he couldn't have gotten too far…"

"_What the hell are you doing in the kitchen, you asshole?!"_ They heard Lovino shout.

"Oh dear…"

* * *

Zoro, Sanji, and Feliciano, who had come to deliver the check, blinked when they heard the shouting.

"Luffy's gone from the table…" Zoro noticed.

"Do you want help getting him out of there?" Sanji asked the shaking Italian.

"N-no, we should be able to manage just fine. Do you want dessert or coffee? It's on the house."

"No, we should be heading out." The green haired man handed the brunette waiter exact change and stood up.

"Next time you stop by, let me know." The blonde said as he too stood up. "I'll make you something. On the house."

"Ve, that makes me happy! Thank you so much!" He waved to them as the left, then shouted as an afterthought, "And have a good night! Try not to hurt Mr. Sanji with your activities!"

"We're _not_-"

"Just let it go. I doubt he cares either way."

"Why does he assume I'm the girl?"

"I told you, it's the hair. If you're good on the way back, we can get ice cream."

Sanji muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "I don't want ice cream," but didn't say anything else.

* * *

After Luffy had finally stopped holding the kitchen hostage, as Lovino put it, Robin was able to pay for their meal…and everything that the black-haired man had consumed on his kitchen run.

"Thank you very much." Feliciano said as he handed Robin back her credit card.

"Don't ever come back, jerks!" Lovino shouted at them.

"_Fratello_, don't be mean." The younger brother whined. The elder just 'hmphed' and went back salvage what was left of the kitchen.

"Don't listen to him, please come again!"

The four of them were almost out of the door before Franky turned around and asked, "You don't have any connections with the mafia, do you?"

Robin giggled, Luffy looked confused, and Nami was about ready to murder him.

"Eh? Me? No no no, I don't mess with the mob!" Feliciano answered.

"See? Why did you have to bring it up?" Nami shrieked.

"Lovino. He's the one with the mob connections. You'd want to talk to him about that."

"Seriously? Super! Can I see him real quick?"

"NO!" Nami grabbed his ear and dragged him out of the restaurant.

"Have a good night!" Feliciano shouted after them.

* * *

"Zoro, aren't you going to be late for work?" Sanji said looking at his watch.

"Is it that time already? Shit." He took off running down the street. "See ya later!"

The blonde waved after him. As soon as he was out of sight, he heard somebody shout "Sanji!" Naturally, he turned around and found…

"Nami Swan! Robin Nico! And you losers. What brings you here?"

"Sanji, what happened to Zoro?" Nami asked.

"Oh, he left."

"He left you? Sanji, I'm so sorry." She pulled him into a tight hug. The chef had half a mind to just let his angel think what she wanted and keep hugging him, but the other half one over in the end.

"Um…he'll be back tonight. He just left for work. And we're not dating."

"What?! But…we saw you…in _Veneziano's_…"

"We just went to lunch and that was the first place we saw…" He explained sheepishly. "He…well, I, didn't want you to think your conclusions were wrong when we saw you, so-"

"You saw us?! That waiter told you didn't he?"

"I told you, that dude's the guy who cracks under pressure." Franky said, his arm around Robin.

"Wait, you thought Sanji and Zoro were dating?" Luffy asked Nami skeptically.

"Of course, why else do you think I wanted to follow them in there?"

"For the food of course. I've known them since high school and if they finally got together, I'd be the first to know!"

"Not you too Luffy…" Sanji muttered. Robin gave her trade mark giggle.

"Maybe if you got out more, Mr. Cook, you know, played the field a bit; people might stop jumping to these random conclusions."

"Yeah, dude." Franky nodded in agreement. "We all care about you is all, and we just want you to be happy. So meet some girls! Hell, meet some guys if that's how you swing! Just get out there man!"

"It's not that bad, right?" He looked at his Nami for conformation.

"Well, yeah, it kind of is. I know you work a lot, but really, you should get out more. Plus Zeff just hired a bunch of new chefs and you got a pay raise, so your hours should be cut to a reasonable length. You could use that time to meet someone, you know?"

"If Nami says so, than it must be true. Fine, I'll try to get out more, for you."

"Thanks Sanji."

"Hey Sanji, can we stop for ice cream on the way back?" Luffy asked.

"Who said you were coming with me?"

"Nami told us to leave the bags in the car, and I don't want to carry them again, so I'll just go with you instead."

"Luffy you ungrateful bastard!" Nami exclaimed, punching him in the head, "who do you think just bought you lunch!"

"Robin. But Franky can carry her stuff, so it's all good."

"Unbelievable!" She stormed off in the opposite direction.

"Oh dear. See you later Mr. Cook, Mr. Luffy."

"See ya dudes on the flip side." They both hurried up after the fuming red head.

"So, Sanji, about that ice cream?"

"Yeah, yeah, you'll get your ice cream…filthy parasite."

"Thanks Sanji!"

"Yeah, whatever."

* * *

***I kid you not, fagioli is actually pronounced Fa-zool. At least that's how my family pronounces it. For future reference, gnocchi is pronounced no-ki.**

**Italian for people who don't know Italian:**

**Ciao- **Hello

**Magnifico - **Magnificent

**Fantastico - **Fantastic

**Fratello - **Brother

**At least that's what the internet tells me...**


	20. Nico Robin

**So I was originally planning on getting this done before I went back to school...but I didn't. So I decided I would just get it done for Valentine's Day...but I didn't. Then I decided it would be a nice surprise for Sanji's Birthday...but that didn't happen. So I figured I'd at least get it done for White Day right? Yeah, no.**

**Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone! This chapter is snake-free just for the holiday! **

**This date is Robin's (finally) as requested by Sentimentalreality oh so long ago. Conis will be next. Hopefully the wait won't be as long.**

**Enjoy.**

**Reviews:**

**Abra Cadaverous: **Of course he is, who doesn't want to go on a date with Sanji? :P Thank you! I know, I just needed some reason for them to go into the restaurant. I was aiming to make it more she wanted her friends happy no matter what, but I failed. XP

**dandy wonderous: **They would. I do that all the time! Yes, go Sanji, I'm sure one day the fangirls will believe you... Just wants to get the record straight is all (pun may have been intended). :P I'm sure he had a good time. ;) It's both actually, like 'aloha,' at least that's what the online translator told me. -_-U Me too, but the family has gotten used to it by now, so they're the ones not fazed. Woot! *plays epic music in the background.* Of course, mafia makes everything better...or worse. Definitely more epic. I got yelled at by the waitress and several other patrons for trying to turn down the salad one time...that was weird. You know he would. ;P That's like me and French! Pshaw, Spiderman FTW. Agreed with you there. Makes things more interesting-I mean I don't know Zoro...*wiggles eyebrows* I'm sure there are ways... It's the risk of eating out with Luffy *le sigh*. Iceburg, but I'm sure they'll make up before he does anything too rash...maybe. Thank you very much! What like Sanji's going to pay for food he could have made himself? Pshaw. XD

**KittyKatKrack: **Really? That's awesome! Enjoy your cupcake! :D Thank you!

**In the Depths of NOTHINGNESS: **Thank you very much! I'm glad you liked it. :D

**Coldstone288: **Thank you! It's cool, I understand. :)

**LoneWolfStark: **Thank you! I'm glad you put up with it anyway. :)

**debuzz: **You're quite welcome!! I'm glad you did! They would wouldn't they? Ah, that must be it. No other explanation. :P It's cool, I recommend checking it out though if you like history or just complete udder nonsensical crack. Thank you!

**kingston: **You're welcome!! Of course they should. Keeps the relationship fresh and all that. XD

**And One Piece is not owned by me.**

* * *

"~Nami Swan!!~" Sanji shouted as he pranced into Weatheria Studios carrying a bag full of food, "~I brought you lunch!!~"

"You can't go in!" A wizened old man named Haredas who looked more like a wizard then a producer stopped him. "There in the middle of shooting the weather forecast!"

"So? Nami asked me to bring her lunch, so lunch is what I've brought her. I even got out early and everything so we could spend time together. They can film the weather later, Nami needs me!"

"I don't care about your failing love life! The weather is a live broadcast so Miss Swan will be in there for quite some time." He grabbed the bag. "Just give me her lunch and-"

"Like hell! I can't trust a shitty old man like you with something as precious as food for my beloved Nami Swan!" Sanji pulled the bag back, starting an insane game of tug-o-war.

"It's just food! She can get some anywhere! You, on the other hand have no purpose being here. Don't make me call security!"

Sanji froze, giving Haredas an opening to grab the bag from his hands. "Just…food…you say? Just food!" He struck out with his foot, causing the old man to freeze in his tracks and creating a lovely crater in the wall next to his head. "That is a delicious feast I prepared for exquisite Nami Swan with all the love and care I can muster! It's delectable and healthy cuisine that will nourish Nami so that she can perform whatever shitty tasks that are well below her skill level you have her doing! It's more than 'just food' shithead! It's my edible masterpiece and you should treat it as such!"

At the end of his speech two people, a big, bald man with bulging muscles and a skinny blue haired woman puffing on a cigarette both dressed in all black walked up behind Sanji.

"Security!" Haredas shouted, "What took you so long? Please escort Mr. uh-"

"Roronoa," Sanji filled in for him, "Zoro Roronoa."

"Please escort Mr. Roronoa from the premises and ask him to never come back."

"Never mind, I'll let myself out." Sanji grabbed the bag and pulled out a smaller, painstakingly decorated take out box with Nami's name on it and handed it to the woman. "Paula, can you get this to Nami please?"

"Sure thing, Sweetie." She took the box and walked away with an awkward hip shape, no questions asked.

"Bones, I'll see you around." He grunted and returned to his post as Sanji walked away with a small wave over his shoulder, leaving Haredas flabbergasted.

* * *

"~Robin Nico!!~" Sanji shouted as he pranced into said woman's office in the back of the history museum. "~I brought you lunch!!~"

"For me?" Robin blinked before re adjusting her glasses and smiling at him. "You didn't have to do that."

"But I wanted to! You deserve it for working so hard!" He presented another painstakingly designed take out box, this time with Robin's name on it. The dark haired woman took her glasses off and opened it up to reveal sandwiches and some cakes that weren't too sweet. The blonde took this opportunity to place a cup of coffee in front of her as well.

"Thank you, Mr. Cook. Will you be joining me for lunch then?"

"~If you insist!~" The chef plopped himself down in the chair on the other side of the historian's desk.

"Did you not bring anything else?"

"Is that not enough? Do you need me to run back and make more?"

"No, this is fine. I was referring to what you would be eating on this lunch date."

"D-date? With Robin? I-I would _never_ think of betraying-"

"I was just joking around a little," Robin laughed while Sanji chuckled nervously. "Seriously, Mr. Cook, are you not hungry?"

As if on cue, the blonde's stomach growled rather loudly and while he mentally told it to shut up because it was being rude with a lady was present, out loud he admitted, "Well, I haven't eaten anything yet…"

"I am surprised. You usually take much better care of yourself." Sanji looked away and blushed.

"Well, it's been a pretty hectic morning. But don't let my minimal discomfort ruin your delightful meal."

Robin sighed before packing up her lunch again and standing up. "Come on, Mr. Cook. I happen to know a young man at the food court who will give you a free meal if I ask. It will probably not be up to your standards, but it will be better than going hungry."

"~If you're the one giving it to me than it can't possibly taste bad!~"

* * *

Robin managed to acquire Sanji's free meal without too much incident, although the teenage boy manning the counter was very uncomfortable with the death glares the chef kept shooting at him. Robin also mentioned that she was getting rather tired of sitting inside, so Sanji suggested they eat outside at the picnic tables. They had the whole area to themselves due to the several inches of snow that covered everywhere.

Sanji cleared away a spot on one of the benches and dried it off with his sleeve before helping his companion into the seat.

"Thank you, Mr. Cook," she replied with a soft smile.

"~It's not problem at all!~" He said while repeating the process on the other side for himself and on the table.

They ate in silence for the most part, aside from Sanji's constant swooning about how Robin was so graceful and delicate when she was eating, but neither seemed to mind the lack of any real conversation with their meal.

"So," Sanji said after a while, "how are the wedding plans coming along?"

Robin choked a little on her food before swallowing. "Why? What have you heard?"

"Nothing…I was just asking. What's wrong Robin? Is there anything I can do to help?"

"No…not really," she sighed, "it's just, well, Franky's been a bit stressed as of late."

"How so? If he's not doing everything in his power and then some to get you your perfect dream wedding I swear I'll-"

"Quite the opposite actually," the historian took a sip of her coffee before continuing, "I never really had much time to think about weddings when I was a little girl, so I honestly couldn't care less about what color the coasters are. It seems as if Franky has, well…"

"Had everything planned out when he was six?" Sanji ventured a guess.

"Yes, something like that. I wouldn't even bother mentioning it to you if he wasn't shutting me out right now-"

"What?!" the blonde slammed his fist on the table, "How can anyone ignore such a stunning beauty as yourself? I'll go kick some sense into him, don't worry."

"It's quite alright Mr. Cook. Between planning for the wedding and his regular job, I'm sure he's just busy."

"If you're the woman he loves, then he should _always_ be able to make time for you!"

"Then, perhaps he doesn't love me anymore?" she asked quietly. Robin's face betrayed no emotion, but Sanji could see her trembling.

"I'm sorry Robin. I didn't mean it like that. Of course he loves you."

"But it would make sense yes? He's been avoiding me because he's having second thoughts…"

"Have you met Franky? I don't think he's ever had a second thought about anything."

"I…may have pressured him to propose. It's possible he never wanted this to begin with…"

The chef got up and sat down right next to his friend to pull her into a tight hug. "Robin, Franky is madly in love with you. There are several dents in my living room floor to prove that. You're not that sad, teenager on the run anymore. No one's chasing you; it's okay that you fell in love and are happy now."

Robin fisted her hands into his jacket. "Thank you Sanji. I-"

"What the hell's going on here!?" Sanji and Robin looked up to see Franky standing there in Speedos and a winter vest despite the below freezing temperature, looking royally pissed.

"This isn't what it looks like…" the blonde said, letting go of his friend and backing away slowly.

"I knew you were a flirt and a pervert but I always thought you knew where the line was man!"

"Nothing happened, Franky," Robin chirped in, "he was just comforting me."

"Comfort? Why would…oh, yeah," he blushed and scratched the back of his head, "that's…kinda what I came to apologize for…"

"You have been ignoring Robin on purpose?! You shithead I oughta-"

"Mr. Cook, please let him explain before you do anything rash," Robin smiled, "if his excuse isn't…up to my standards, then you may do as you please."

Franky gulped. "Okay, so I was talking to Iceburg last week and he accused me of not getting your opinion on our SUPER wedding plans, and I told him that was none of his business as we fought for a bit and I uninvited him to the wedding, but don't worry, I reinvited him later! But, anyway, I was mad at him getting in the way and I started to realize that I really _wasn't _getting your SUPER opinion on anything and just doing things my way, so for some reason I just shut you out more 'cause I was afraid you were mad at me and stuff an I'm an idiot and I'm sorry for ignoring you this past week and half."

"And you finally realized what a shithead you were how?"

"Luffy said you were sad…and he punched me in the face."

"Serves you right! Making poor Robin worry like that…" Robin just chuckled.

"Well, I suppose you're forgiven then," she stood up and walked over to him, "I know you can be quite eccentric when it comes to your projects…just don't let it happen again, hm?"

"Of course not, babe!" he pulled her into a tight hug and kissed her deeply.

Sanji thought it best to give them some time alone and slunk away. The happy couple was a bit preoccupied to notice.

* * *

"Honey I'm home!" Sanji shouted as he came through the door into the apartment. Zoro and Luffy looked up from their intense card game when the door slammed.

"Good, make me a sandwich wench," the green haired man commanded as they focused back on the game.

"Make me something too Sanji!" Luffy shouted before slamming the two of spades and the ace of hearts on the table. "King me!"

"What are you guys playing?" the blonde asked, placing sandwiches in front of his friends.

"Not a clue," Zoro responded, placing the queen of hearts on the table to counter Luffy's last move. "By the way, I went to go pick Nami up from work today. Seems for some reason I've been banned from the premises…"

"It's your temper. You're always too hard on that producer. The man's got to earn a living somehow."

Zoro grunted as Luffy picked up his discarded queen, paired it with the king of spades from his hand, and drew two cards from the deck.

"Oh, Sanji!" the black haired man said over a mouthful of food, and got kicked in the head for it. He swallowed before continuing, "Did you get to talk to Robin?"

"She got wedding jitters or something?" Zoro commented, "Doesn't seem the type…"

"Yeah, I talked to her."

"How is she?"

Sanji lit a cigarette while contemplating that question.

"She'll be just fine."


End file.
